Tour de Fleece Update - Finished!

Ok, so I didn't manage to blog that often in the end. All the time I had free was spent spinning!



There's also a skein of brown alpaca, but it's still drying.

I'm really pleased with how much spinning I did, and with the resulting yarn. I don't know what I'm going to do with any of it yet!

Tour de Fleece update - Day 12!

Last night was Slimming World, so I didn't have a lot of spinning time. I did manage to finish the single for the art yarn. I'm excited to ply it and add the beads and stuff. I don't know if it will ever be made into anything (isn't the point of art yarn that it isn't made into stuff?) but it's going to be cool...

Tour de Fleece update - Day 11!

Day 10 was a rest day for both the riders and spinners, so I happily spent my evening knitting on the Clapotis I’m making for my mum.

Day 11 was a trying day for me in real life, as the redundancy announcements at work came out. I actually still have a job, but I’m not yet sure how I feel about that. I finished the second alpaca single and I intend to ply those shortly.



Then, to cheer myself up, I started my first ever art yarn. I had a pack from the Threshing Barn which I picked up at one of the British Wool Weekend events, I think last November.



I emptied the tube onto my floor to see what was in there…



Flowers, leaves, beads, yarn, curls, silk blend and wool fibre (from two different breeds of sheep, at least)

So, I started spinning a single of that, with some intentional slubs, and then when I Navajo ply it, I will add the beads, flowers and leaves. I’m not sure about the yarn. It’s not really working for me, so it might not be added at all to this yarn. We’ll see how I feel when I get to that point.

TdF day 7, 8 and 9!

Well, being off work is apparently not conducive to posting daily on my blog. I wonder why that could be?

Thursday evening I did a little bit of spinning on the alpaca, but I didn’t have long to spin so not a lot got done.



Spinning alpaca from the cloud (with no prep) is pretty dirty work, but it’s spinning up nicely!

Friday I did less spinning than I had hoped, as I spent the morning doing chores and then we went strawberry picking in the afternoon. I really enjoyed the fruit picking and might even go again before the season is over. I did manage to take the wheel outside for a little while though, which was nice.



And the bobbin started to fill up nicely while I was out in the sunshine



Day 8 was Saturday, and we went to the exhibit about the Mallard speed record at the National Railway Museum in York. It was a lot of fun!



It did mean that I didn’t get much spinning done though, in fact the day 8 bobbin looks quite similar to the day 7 one above!

 

On Sunday there was a tennis match on the TV (that would be the historic Wimbledon men’s final where Andy Murray finally triumphed!) and I spun during the whole match. This ended up being quite a lot of spinning!



The slightly blurry picture on the right is my second bobbin of the alpaca; the one on the left is the first finished bobbin.

Today (Monday) is a rest day for the Tour de France cyclists, and so I won’t be doing any spinning today. This is fine by me, as we’re experimenting with a new transport option for my knitting group: I’m going to get the bus back to the nearest village tonight, and then hubby will collect me from there once his ceramics class is finished.

Tour de Fleece update - Day 5!

Still managing to spin and post daily...

I wound this off the bobbin and onto the niddy noddy. It's about 100 yards, I need to wash it before I measure the wpi.



I'm really pleased with it though, the colours have blended nicely and so it's got that slightly "mucky" effect which looks so pretty.

Then I weighed out 50g of the alpaca fleece



and started to spin that "from the cloud". It's quite dirty, I hear that alpaca like to roll in the dust a lot. However, I've also heard that it's easier to spin alpaca dirty.



It's spinning up nicely but quite fine, I hope it will bloom when washed. I think it will be a 2 ply, although it depends on what the rest spins up likw. I have about 500g all together, so I'm hoping to make about 5 100g skeins all of a similar thickness. We'll see how that pans out. I might end up doing something else entirely!

I have tomorrow off work, so I should be able to get quite a lot done, once I have tidied the house, put up the new curtains, put away the washing... Okay, I should get some done in any case. Hubby is also off work in the afternoon, so we might take a trip to the pick your own strawberries nearby. I fancy making some strawberry wine and jam.

Tour de Fleece update - Day 4!

So, yesterday was day 4 of the Tour de France, the team time trial. I managed not to see any of the race this time, but I did enjoy watching the Yorkshire contingent getting excited about the Grande Depart which will be in Yorkshire next year for the 101st tour.

Anyway, I did manage to finish the alpaca single, and I stayed up far too late last night plying it.



I still need to wind it off onto the niddy-noddy and then work out how long it is.
That will then mean two complete skeins (one 100g, one 50g) and I'm moving on to some alpaca fleece, all being well, tonight.
I'm hoping to spin enough of the alpaca for a sleeveless cardigan of some description, though I also want a little bit of some other colours to give some stripes across the bust.

Tour de Fleece update - Day 3!

Well, I'm not comitting to daily updates, but who knows...

here's what I managed yesterday



I wound the plied yarn into a skein - though it needs a bath now before I consider it finished.
I got distracted by 50g of alpaca top from Willo Alpacas though, and instead of spinning the alpaca fleece I went ahead and spun this instead. It's spinning up very nicely though, and I look forward to navajo plying it maybe this evening!