Le Tour de Fleece Days 1 - 4

Le Tour de Fleece

The aim - spin a little (or a lot) every day of the Tour de France. If you can co-ordinate it with the race itself (ie spin something challenging during the difficult mountain stages) so much the better.

So I'm taking part again & hopefully this year I'll stick to it. Last year I lasted 3 days so I've already beat my previous record :0D

My goals

1) spin up as much of my sadly neglected stash as possible
2) learn to spin proper longdraw (my usual method is a short backwards draw)
3) spin some different fibres (silk, alpaca, etc as well as wools I've never spun before)

I'm so chuffed - I'd lost my spinning mojo early in the year & from January had only spun about 60g of merino in about 5 months. Since Saturday 4th July I've finished the rest of the merino & spun 100g of jacob & 100g of the BFL/silk. I'm spinning for Team LSG (lazy, stupid & godless) on ravelry & am posting my daily progress there. Since I definitely embody the 'L' in our title I'm just gonna cut & paste my rav posts :0D

Day 1

I just spent the last 3 hours spinning up the last 40g or so of this -



merino from Halona Yarns.

I've hardly spun at all this year & I'm pretty sure this has been OTB since before xmas. Since I only have the 3 bobbins I'm gonna have to ply tomorrow before I can spin anything else & since 1 has been relaxing for about 6 months & the other is only just spun & springy as fk it should be an interesting experience . . .

Day 2

I plied the Halona Yarns merino from yesterday (took about 2 hours) -



close up -



There was a wee bit left on one bobbin & being the kind of person who can't bear to see anything go to waste (hey, I'm a Scot) I plied some of it with a wee bit of merino then n-plied the rest -



Once my bobbins were freed up I spent another 2 & a half hours spinning up the first half of some kettle dyed jacob humbug from Shunklies on etsy -



and here's the other half ready to go tomorrow -



So all in all that's 4 & a half hours spinning for me today (& no housework :0P).

Day 3

Spent an hour spinning up the rest of the jacob humbug from Shunklies -



I was trying to spin thicker but am finding it really difficult - I managed a little bit thicker but not much :0S

Am not sure whether to n-ply (which was the original plan) or head up to the Mad Crafter for a big spool of shiny thread & ply with that instead. It was lovely to spin 'cos the roving was quite skinny - I just opened up the end & spun the whole length as it was, undoing loops as I went to keep the colour progression.

I'll hopefully get more spinning done later but I guess I better do some housewifely stuff now (sigh).

ETA - I was too L to go up town so decided just to n-ply & got exactly what I'd been hoping for when I started - 111 yards of heavy worsted to chunky with a definite colour progression. Only fly in the ointment is that I couldn't fit it all on one one bobbin when plying - I wants a jumbo flyer! {stamps foot}

It took 40 minutes to ply so that's 1 hour 40 for me today. Suppose I'd better do some knitting tonight . . .

pics -







& OMG you guys! I unwound yesterday's bobbin (merino from Halona Yarns) & discovered the best spinning I've ever done! 360 yards at 14 WPI & the most even I've done to date -



I haz a happy :0D

aaaaand finally -



another 2 hours spinning 50g of BFL/silk in blackberries that I received in the 2nd UK spinners group swap. That's the 1st bobbin done so I plan to spin the other 50g tomorrow & ply 'em together. This has been S-spun & will be Z-plied as it's for a crocheter.

I'm done for the day now - my a^se is square :0P

Day 4

So far have spent 1 hour 15 minutes spinning more of the BFL/silk -





Not sure if I'll get much more done today as I have a bathroom to clean then I have to go up town & the in-laws are coming for dinner tonight (spag bol so at least that's easy to make :0D).

ETA

I was too L to go up town so got in another 2 hours 20 minutes this arvo - I now have 249 yards of rather scrummy BFL/silk 2-ply :0D

I'll take pics as soon as I find DH's camera since my camera batteries just died . . .