Tour de Fleece 2014 Draws To A Close

Posted on July 28, 2014 by Rayna

I have officially completed my first Tour de Fleece.

I am pretty happy with how it went, overall. I didn’t spin as much as I had hoped. Actually that’s not true. I spun more than I thought I would at the start, but after finishing a whole braid in my first 8 days, I had thought I’d get more done.

However, it seems that spinning progress got a lot slower in the second half. Maybe because I spun less, time-wise…maybe because the fibre was different and it just took me longer. I am still not sure.

In any case, I turned a 115 gram braid of merino bamboo into 300 yards of gorgeous yarn,

Colourway: “Cast On Couch”

and a 62 gram braid of merino cashmere into 230 yards of delightful squooshy-ness,

Colourway: Flamingoes Are Not Munitions Experts"

Colourway: “Flamingos Are Not Munitions Experts”

and I made some headway into a third braid of camel/silk.

Colourway: “I Am A Drinker With A Spinning Problem”

I spun indigodragonfly only…being their team captain and all. The only untouched indigodragonfly fibre I have left is some merino/seacell…but I have 300 grams of that so I am keeping that until I figure out what I want that to become.

I will keep on keeping on with the Humpspun…and maybe alternate that bobbin with some other fibre that has been languishing in my stash. I am looking to learn some woolen techniques and I may have to break into some batts for that.

Tour de Fleece: Rest Day 1

Posted on July 15, 2014 by Rayna

It popped up on my calendar today that this is the first of the two Tour “rest days”. We don’t spin our wheels when the riders don’t, so to speak. I had not planned to actually take a day off today, but I think I will because I am getting some aches and pains in my right hand. Considering how much time I have spent at my wheel these past 10 days, I suppose that should not be surprising.

My current project is another indigodragonfly fibre. This one is a camel/silk blend, creatively named Humpspun, in a colourway named, “I Am A Drinker With A Spinning Problem”.

Humpspun Fibre

This name might be more a propos than I care to admit. This yarn, when finished, is going to be a great many things. It’s going to be ultra-soft, and very warm. It’s also going to be very pretty, with some blue-green silky bits strewn in amongst natural/beige coloured camel fibres.

Know what it’s not going to be? EVEN.

I have been spinning this fibre for a few nights and my relatively inexperienced hands just cannot get the hang of drafting this. At. All.

Single Progress after 3rd day

I am fairly certain this single runs the gamut from laceweight to worsted, depending on where you look. I am not sure if this is just a “harder” fibre to spin, or if it’s different from the usual merino or BFL blends I am accustomed to. But in any case, I suspect this is going to take the rest of the Tour to spin because I am spinning way more slowly than with the PandaBaa and I can’t spin as long because my hands hurt.

I am still loving working on it though, now that I have decided to let it be what it wants to be, and I think the yarn is going to be lovely and original when I am done.

Which is to say, “lovely and original” sounded much nicer than saying “it will look like it was spun by an untrained four year old who drafted with her left foot”.

Tour de Fleece Progress

Posted on July 8, 2014 by Rayna

Tour de Fleece after Day 3. Five eights of the braid done. At this rate, I'll be starting a new braid by the weekend!

Tour de Fleece after Day 3. Five eighths of this indigodragonfly braid done. At this rate, I’ll be starting a new braid by the weekend!

Canada Day Weekend FO: Spinning Edition

Posted on July 3, 2014 by Rayna

Some evenings, spinning is a lovely, relaxing way to wind down after a long day. Since I picked it up again in May, I have been finding knitting time dwindling and spinning time increasing…which is a bit of a problem since really, I am just creating more yarn. But I digress.

Since May, I have spun up three separate braids, and this one is the first that I would consider luxury, ie that is something other than straight merino or BFL. This braid of 80% BFL and 20% silk from Friends in Fibre has been calling to me with its lovely blues and purples for a while now, and I thought it was time to spin up something truly yummy.

Friends In Fiber BFL/Silk in “Blue Moon”

After watching Felicia Lo’s Craftsy class called “Spinning Dyed Fibres” and discovering that the braid had lovely long runs of colour, I decided on a fractal spin. This is a process whereby you split the braid lengthwise down the middle, and then spin one half as is to get the afore mentioned long stretches of single colour. The other half is then split lengthwise as many times as possible and spun up one after the other. This creates shorter runs of colour, and then the two are plied together. Real results are only visible once the piece is knit up and I haven’t gotten that far yet.

After plying on Saturday, I Tweeted this picture:

First run at plying

One of my followers, an avid spinner, commented that it was pretty and I asked her if perhaps the plying was too loose. I have a tendency to overspin my singles with the knowledge that the plying will take some of it away, but it seems I am a bit overcautious with the plying. “Fluffykira” kindly suggested that I run it back through the wheel – something I wasn’t actually sure I could do – if I felt it wasn’t plied tightly enough. She assured me it would be fine and that I could just soak it again afterwards and all would be well! I can’t say how grateful I am to her. After 45 minutes or so, and an episode of Battlestar Galactica…this was the result.

After a second ply…

Next time I will know not to be quite so judicious with the amount of twist I am adding. Because frankly, having to re-do all this a second time was a bit of a pain, even if it was totally worth it in retrospect.

Finished skein

Next up…indigodragonfly PandaBaa in “Cast On Couch”. This gorgeous red-purple colourway in merino/bamboo will be going on my wheel for Tour de Fleece! In fact, indigodragonfly has entered a team into the festivities. Come join us on Ravelry!

Spinning FO: Blooming Bougainvilla

Posted on June 26, 2014 by Rayna

Remember this?

Last week I decided that the spindle spin I had started during Tour de Fleece two years ago was never going to get finished unless my Lendrum got involved.

I am pleased to report it’s all done! And it turned out remarkably well, all things considered, although it’s not as even as my most recent spinning.

The Woolee Winder I purchased is a miracle worker. I easily got the single onto a single bobbin.

The Finished Single

Then on Monday evening, I “Shireen-plyed” my yarn. This is a name I have given to a faux-Andean plying method that Shireen came up with last week. 4 oz of single is a bit hard to Andean ply without cutting off circulation to your fingers, so Shireen wound it into a centre-pull ball, and then plied the two ends of the ball together. A small downfall to this method: towards the very end, the ball collapses and gets a bit tangly. The up side? You never have mismatched single from having two bobbins that don’t quite match. In this case, I did it to ply older, thicker, spindle spun yarn with newer wheel spun yarn in an attempt at consistency.