When I came back from vacation, I started slowly re-immersing myself in the online fibre world. One of the things I found a bit late on Ravelry was the Tour de Fleece--a spinning "competition" that runs during the Tour de France. The idea was to spin every day that the bikers rode--you could take off the Monday rest days, just like they did. I was rather late to the party, but everyone graciously welcomed be anyways, so I started my daily spinning right around the halfway point of the tour--I think my first day was stage 12 of 21?
Some of the spinners in the group were way more productive than I was, but I'm still pretty happy with my output over the 10 days or so I was spinning:
Starting top left in the 4 skeins, that's 3.9 oz/115 yds of merino in "Breakfast at Wimbledon", 4 oz/218 yds of superwash merino in "Tobacco Road", 3.9 oz/128 yds of merino in "The Peloton", and 1.7 oz/102 yds of a wool/silk blend called "In the Rough." Beneath that, on the left bobbin is the first laceweight single of "To Hate Like this is to Love Forever" (merino, will be about 3.9 oz when done....yardage unknown), the right bobbin is leftover singles plied together, and in front is a bit of silk single that's still leftover after going into 2 other yarns.
You may notice that the names of my colourways are a bit unusual! Tobacco Road I take no credit for, that's the name that one came with. But the others are ones I dyed myself, and was struggling to name. I realized while spinning them that I do a lot of my spinning in front of sports on the TV--in this case, mainly the Tour, but also some British Open golf, a bit of Rogers Cup tennis, and bits and pieces of other things. In the fall there will be football followed by, of course, the joys of college basketball....anyway, I thought from now on I will try to come up with sports-themed names for my handspun colourways whenever I can. If I do one day decide to launch that etsy shop, perhaps this will be my niche.....we shall see.
In other spinning news, now that the Tour is over and the Ravelympics haven't begun, I have decided to spend a bit of time in "training". One thing I have realized while watching other spinners post pics of their beautiful yarns is that I have a LOT to learn about the "sport" of spinning. There are so many fibres I haven't used, so many techniques I haven't tried! So this week my goal is going to be to read about or try a new technique or idea every day. I'm just starting to make a list of what those techniques and ideas are, and am combing the web and Ravelry for some thoughts. Today my goal is to try Andean plying on my wheel....I did it on my spindle sometime last year, but haven't tried it since, and never on the wheel. I have a few leftover bits of singles that would be good to practice on, and there are lots of great tutorials out there, so this should be an easy beginning. Wish me luck!
Some of the spinners in the group were way more productive than I was, but I'm still pretty happy with my output over the 10 days or so I was spinning:
Starting top left in the 4 skeins, that's 3.9 oz/115 yds of merino in "Breakfast at Wimbledon", 4 oz/218 yds of superwash merino in "Tobacco Road", 3.9 oz/128 yds of merino in "The Peloton", and 1.7 oz/102 yds of a wool/silk blend called "In the Rough." Beneath that, on the left bobbin is the first laceweight single of "To Hate Like this is to Love Forever" (merino, will be about 3.9 oz when done....yardage unknown), the right bobbin is leftover singles plied together, and in front is a bit of silk single that's still leftover after going into 2 other yarns.
You may notice that the names of my colourways are a bit unusual! Tobacco Road I take no credit for, that's the name that one came with. But the others are ones I dyed myself, and was struggling to name. I realized while spinning them that I do a lot of my spinning in front of sports on the TV--in this case, mainly the Tour, but also some British Open golf, a bit of Rogers Cup tennis, and bits and pieces of other things. In the fall there will be football followed by, of course, the joys of college basketball....anyway, I thought from now on I will try to come up with sports-themed names for my handspun colourways whenever I can. If I do one day decide to launch that etsy shop, perhaps this will be my niche.....we shall see.
In other spinning news, now that the Tour is over and the Ravelympics haven't begun, I have decided to spend a bit of time in "training". One thing I have realized while watching other spinners post pics of their beautiful yarns is that I have a LOT to learn about the "sport" of spinning. There are so many fibres I haven't used, so many techniques I haven't tried! So this week my goal is going to be to read about or try a new technique or idea every day. I'm just starting to make a list of what those techniques and ideas are, and am combing the web and Ravelry for some thoughts. Today my goal is to try Andean plying on my wheel....I did it on my spindle sometime last year, but haven't tried it since, and never on the wheel. I have a few leftover bits of singles that would be good to practice on, and there are lots of great tutorials out there, so this should be an easy beginning. Wish me luck!
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