End of the Tour

Sunday was the end of this year's Tour de Fleece. I spun right up to the final minute, finishing my last yarn just as the Manx Missile crossed the finish line on the Champs-Elysee in Paris.

Clockwise from top left - 
 
311 yards of Bee Mice Elf's Merino wool in 'Beloved Bard'; 
340 yards of Corriedale custom dyed by a friend; 
171 yards of Spinderella's 'Harvest'; 
and lastly - 420 yards of Bee Mice Elf's Falkland wool, in 'Nutty' and 'Plumage'.

That's 1242 yards - .7 miles - of finished yarn, for which I spun 3726 yards between the singles and plying. That's a grand total of 2.1 MILES of spinning. Think the Peloton would be impressed, after their 3,000+ plus miles around France?

I was pleased with how my experiment with the two BME colorways turned out.  I think this will be the first handspun from this Tour that I'll make into . . . . . something. Any suggestions on what it wants to be??
  
And in honor of my pledge, several years ago, that I'd spin Merino again when pigs fly . . .
 
Look out below!   

End In Sight

I spun the second Bee Mice Elf batt, in Plumage, into singles today; still planning to ply it tomorrow with the BME Nutty I finished yesterday.
 
Last night I also wound the Susie batt onto the new Clemes & Clemes niddy noddy I purchased at Convergence. 
 
340 yards of 2-ply at about a sport-weight, I think.
 
Love the texture and how (mostly) evenly spun it is.
 
Now I just need to decide which shawl pattern I want to use with it.

Tour Company

Each night, Leia joins hubby and I as we watch the Tour de France. She has absolutely no interest in the bike race, but she wants to be with us (which I love.) 

  

She makes herself comfortable with blanket and pillow, picks a movie to watch on the iPad, has me put the headphones on for her (she can't get them to stay on her ears without help) and settles down for an hour or two of together time before bed.

 
While she's occupied, I spin. I finished plying the Susie Corriedale yarn yesterday - 
 

I still need to get it on the niddy noddy for a yardage count - and started another Bee Mice Elf project tonight.

 
I'm going to spin two Falkland colorways - Nutty 
and Plumage -
 
and then ply them together in a single yarn. I love brown and I love purple, so I'll love them even better together, right? ~crosses fingers~

Challenge Day

I finished plying only one yarn - the Bee Mice Elf Merino - but I worked at it for over 3 hours, so I'm counting Challenge Day as done. 
311 yards of 2-ply, at about a sports-weight, I think. Once it's dry, I'll check that thought, since my 'assumptions' have been kinda wacky lately.
 
Remember the antique niddy-noddy I've used for the past 2 years to measure my handspun? Yeah. Turns out it isn't 2-yards around, like I assumed thought. It's 2 meters, or 80". So all the handspun yardage I tallied during last year's Tour? Short. By a lot.  

Tour de Fleece

It's been a pretty crummy week - a former co-worker died unexpectedly on Friday and my MIL passed away on Sunday - so not much blogging or crafting has been happening. 

I've done a little bit of spinning almost every day, working on my Tour de Fleece goals.

 

Tomorrow is TdF Challenge Day and I'm planning to ply both the 6+ ounces of Corriedale from the Susie batt

 

and the 4+ ounces of Bee Mice Elf Merino.

 
Not sure I can get both done, but that's what makes it a 'challenge', right?

FO and TdF

That's crochet code for 'finished object'. In this case, it's a Tunisian scarf . . . 
  
that I'm teaching as a class in less than 2 weeks. Nothing like waiting until the last minute, eh? 

I love that this is reversible and pretty on both sides - knit stitch on the front 

and ribs on the back.

 

TdF, aka Tour de Fleece, update: The leftover Spinderella is spun, 

 

plied - I got another 171 yards to add to last year's 248 -

soaked, whacked and drying. 

 

Hope to have pretty finished yarn pictures soon.

Plus, the mystery Susie batt is 3/4 spun.

 

Bobbin one - the first half of the batt - is resting, 

 

waiting for bobbin two to be finished, probably in another 2 days or so. 

This taking my time, not rushing through spinning every little bit of roving or batt, is very nice. Maybe I should relax, goal-wise, more often.

Random Crafty

I've finished a bunch of crafty stuff recently, but most of it was for other people, so I needed to gift it before I posted it here. So, in no particular order . . . 

Little Girl Dresses - I finished the latest batch - 2 for Addy and 1 for Leia - and put the ones going to Colorado in the mail Friday. 
 
Yesterday I received this picture (sorry for the cell-phone quality) and a note that Addy is refusing to take it off. Ever. Made my day. 
 
It's hard to see but Leia's wearing her dress in the top photo. It's a Merida from "Brave" t-shirt with a colorful giraffe skirt; she chose the fabric and is thrilled with it.

Alaska Scarves - my SIL and BIL are going camping in Alaska for 3 months in a teardrop trailer and jeep. Yep, we think they are crazy too. 
 
Even though it's summer, I figured they'd need something to help keep warm around the campfire, so I hooked up a couple of scarves.
 
Both are made using waffle stitch, my current favorite. The girl version is Liberty Wool (love that stuff!!) and the boy one is two strands of alpaca held together. They are both soft, squishy and warm.

Tour de Fleece 2012 - I've doing the Tour for (I think) the 6th year in a row. I stressed so much last year over 'goals' that I burned out on spinning - this is the first time I've fired up my wheel since Tour de France 2011 ended. So I've come up with a more reasonable plan (hubby is shocked; 'reasonable' is not usually in my nature.) I plan to spin a minimum of 30 minutes each day, more if I feel like it. 

 

I missed Day 1 - the Prologue - but I've spun every day since, averaging 85 minutes each day. I'll also be stashbusting, using fiber that's been around for awhile.

First up was 56 grams of Spinderella 'Harvest' that I thought I finished spinning last year. Surprise! It took 3 days, but it's definitely done now.
 
Next is a 6.35 ounce/180 gram batt that a friend made for me. Love these colors so much. I've forgotten what all is in there, so I need to ask her, again. And write it down so I don't forget. Again.          

Viva la Tour

The Tour de Fleece is done for this year and I love how much I was able to accomplish -

Left to right: 504 yards of superwash BFL from BeeMiceElf; 424 yards of Polworth in 'Caribbean' colorway; 200 yards of alpaca/Romney blend from Morro Fleece Works; and finally - 224 248 yards of a Spinderella mix in the colorway 'Harvest'.

For a grand total of 1352 yards. That's three-quarters of a mile, spun in just 22 days. If you consider that each skein is 2 threads plied together, the total was 2704 yards - or 1.5 MILES of spinning. I *love* the Tour.

Busy Day

Towels, gifted:
Fiber, spun:
Knitting, done.

I've had the woven towels finished for awhile, but was waiting until I'd given them to their recipients to share pictures. The pattern is from Webs (here) and details are on my Ravelry page (here). All three towels were done on the same warp; just the weft color changed in each one.

Started spinning the first of two 3-ounce batts from Spinderella - in 'Harvest' - that have been in my stash since 2006 or so. Love this colorway, especially how it sparkles. I'd been saving it for "special", for when I became a "better" spinner. Finally realized great fiber should be enjoyed (so I have an excuse to get more!)

Both fronts and backs are done on the Scarf Trick Sweater. On to the sleeves!

Spun, Plied and Done

It took every bit as long as I thought it would and maxed out my jumbo plying bobbin to the point that I had to wind the last 120+ yards into a center-pull ball and finish plying by hand. But it's done and I love all 504 yards of it.

Color is accurate in the top 2 pictures.

It hasn't told me what it wants to be yet . . . . a shawl? A vest? A really long scarf? Sooooo happy to have this done.

Wonder if I have time before the Tour ends to spin up another batt or two??

It Made Me

Want to see what jumped out of the stash and demanded to be spun today? I bought this 7 ounce batt from Morro Fleece Works at the Guild's fiber fest last year. I thought the colors were the most gorgeous thing I'd see all day.

I hadn't planned on spinning it for this year's Tour de Fleece but sometimes you just have to listen to the fiber when it calls to you. And once I started spinning, I couldn't stop. The fiber prep was so smooth, so even, so addictive. In less than a day this was spun, plied, washed, whacked, photographed and hung up to dry. 200 yards of 2-ply fuzzy alpaca/Romney goodness.

Wasn't sure what I was going to make with this, but its been whispering all night that it wants to be a scarf. Guess I better start looking for patterns.

Tour Progress

The sweater is coming along; not much done since class on Friday but I did get photographic evidence today. Still hoping to get this finished by the end of the Tour, but since I have little to no idea how to put sleeves in, I may be off by a day or so.

Today's BIG news is that I finished spinning all 9+ ounces of BeeMiceElf's 'Serene'. Whoohoo!! Planning to let this sit tomorrow in honor of the Tour's rest day, then start plying it on Tuesday. Sooooo pleased to have this done.

The colors in the first photo aren't accurate - bad lighting this time of day, I guess - so this is more what the yarn actually looks like. I still think it's Christmas-y.

Tour de Fleece

Finished the first 4.6 ounce braid of BeeMiceElf's 'Serene', spinning a total of 45 grams (1.6 oz) tonight. I'm amazed that it all fits on one bobbin - but that bobbin is a Woolee Winder, which really packs on the yardage. So much yardage, in fact, that the thought of plying two of these monsters together is starting to scare me. Can you say 'spinner's elbow'?

To Each Her Own

While I was busy spinning*, Leia was busy building a house for Princess Tiana. A productive day for everyone.

* 18 grams spun today, which puts me a quarter of the way done.