le Maillot Jaune!

I got the button for the yellow jersey of the tour de fleece since I completed my challenge (and then some!) It was so much fun and I'll be looking for it again next year. Congrats to all the "riders"!

And I'm spent!

The Tour de France is officially over (Floyd Landis won)- and thus ends the first Tour de Fleece. I managed to finish the alpaca/merino/tussah (my tertiery challenge) just in time. I ended up with 317 yards of DK weight (~13-14wpi) 2 ply yarn. I thought I was spinning pretty evenly, but not quite enough. I wound the yarn into a center pull ball to ply from both ends thinking that since it was folded in half to dye I would get the same colors from each end. It was a good thought and would have worked if I had spun the same throughout. It was pretty close, but I have places where the plies are the same color and some where it barber poles, but I think it is still pretty (though I can't really get that great of color in the picture at noon here- much too bright.). Here are pictures of the center pull ball- you can see at least the different colors here- and then one of the plied skein drying outside on the line. It was a fun challenge and I will look for it again next year!

The last few days!!!

Well- leave it to me to make my extra challenge the one I might not finish! I would have to pick a roving of 6.25oz to try to spin fine instead of my normal medium to heavy worsted. There are just a few days left and I am just under half way done with this one. I'll keep on truckin' and hope for the best!!! Here's the bobbin so far....
(3.5oz left to go)

Spin on!

My original challenge is finished, but as long as the riders keep riding, I will keep spinning! Yesterday I spun up 4oz of the 8oz of the 8oz of Ashland Bay Hollyberry merino I have. I navajo plied and ended up with 85yds of ~10-11wpi yarn.

I will now work on the 6.25oz of Alpaca/Merino/Tussah-bought at The Fold -from Blue Moon Fiber Arts (of Socks That Rock fame- but she doesn't do roving anymore- what a shame!)

Change of plans- but now finished with Le Tour de Fleece Challenge!!!

Well- for the final part of my challenge I wanted to try a boucle yarn out my dyeing4spring exchange roving (first pic). I tried- but I just don't have a good wheel for the size yarn I made. I had a small bit on one bobbin that had the spiral already done. I tried a binder, but it got way too much twist as it wouldn't feed through the orifice on my wheel. So I decided I would keep the rest as a spiral yarn. It is well balanced and looks good to me (I've never done a really fun yarn before!) So that completes my challenge. Earlier than I thought- I wasn't sure I'd make it- especially since I got a late start after finishing my opal yarn! I started the challenge spinning July 9th and I managed to finish early morning July 17th. Yeah!!!

All in all for the challenge I spun 4oz silk, 8oz merino, and 5oz merino/kid mohair (not included is the last 1.5oz of opal silk and 8oz opal targhee I had to finish before I could even start my challenge!). I made three skeins of yarn- the lime and violet silk/merino is 318yds at ~12wpi, the rainforest and yellow silk/merino is 210yds at ~10wpi, and the merino/kid mohair spiral yarn is 99yds at ~5wpi. There was a litle leftover yarn so I have three tiny navajo plied skeins: rainforest silk-32yds, lime/violet silk-15yds, and merino/kid mohair-11yds . Here are pics of everything...

Over the bump

I took the violet and lime silk/merino yarn and ran it through a s-twist again to add more twist to the ply. It helped a bit and the yarn is better now, but I think if I add any more it will be over twisted in the plying direction. Right now it still hangs straight- I'll stick with that!

I started spinning the core yarn for my boucle and I just hope I have it thin enough. It will be close! I have about 2.5 more feet of what I want as the core and then I will start spinning the second yarn to spiral around the core. Maybe I'll get it done tomorrow- we'll see just how much time I get. I would take a picture of the core yarn, but I'm tired and need to go to bed. I'll post one later. Ta ta!

Bump in the road.....

Stage 12 is past and I'm feeling like I have actually accomplished something. I've been spinning and spinning, but now I have yarn! I finished the rainforest silk (the pic is of the silk on my Spindlewood Co. and Cascabeles spindles) so I plied them with the already finished merino today. I like the way the rainforest silk plied with the yellow merino, but the plying on the violet merino with the violet and lime silk looks awful. The singles look like they are barely hanging on to each other- not even close to plied together (though the yellow one doesn't look a whole lot different in the pic- it really is!). I'll have to un- and re-ply. I should still have the time left (as long as this isn't a horrible mess....) to try out making a boucle yarn- that will be the biggest challenge for me. Ride on!

Catching up!!!

I started spinning the violet merino before I went to bed last night. I figured I would get about 2 ounces done, well it was spinning so easy and so fast (this merino top was so lofty and easy to draft!) that I managed 3 full ounces in just about an hour. I don't know how fast anyone else spins (I only started wheel spinning in February!) but for me that was fast. During the day today I finished the last ounce of the violet and since it was going so well I went ahead and spun the entire 4 ounces of the yellow merino. Just two ounces of the rainforest silk to spin and then I will ply the silks and the merino. I should actually have time to get the boucle yarn done!~! Wahoo! "Ride (spin)" like the wind baby!

Getting there- this must be the uphill section!!

Last night I finished a good bit of the lime and violet silk. Today I did finish the last of it. Tonight I will work on the violet merino to ply it with. I should finish about 2 ounces of it and then the other 2 ounces I'll do tomorrow. Gotta get caught up so I can make sure to get that boucle yarn tried!! Here's a pic of my two Greensleeves spindles (a McKenna Lee and a Vixen) from this morning- not quite full and this afternoon- now full! Off to spin merino now!

Catch-up- whooh am I behind!

July 4th- nothing got done that day. Too much to do with the family. Fishing with the girls, dh, and mil- this is the youngest with grandma!

We did get to take the two girls to a little carnival before the fireworks. That was fun.

July 5th- finished up another ounce of the opal Targhee, just two more left!!!

July 6th- finally finished the last two ounces and I'm ready to ply.

July 7th- Got the opal Targhee and silk plied and wound into two skeins. Yeah!!

July 8th- too much clean-up after the trip to get any spinning done.

July 9th- got about 1oz of my lime and violet silk done. At least now I've started the project.

July 10th- nothing yet- it will happen later tonight though!

Oops. Last post was july 2. July 1 was a travel day. July 3-not much spinning time- only 1oz of opal targhee got done, but at least bobbins full!

July 1-I finished the last of the 4 oz nf opal silk and 2 of the 8 oz of opal targhee. Ill keep going on that and will do my real tour stuff next

Le Tour de Fleece!

It's Le Tour de Fleece! I joined up and have set my projects. First I am going to spin up the two silk rovings (violet lime and rainforest both from spinning bunny) and ply them with their coordinating solid merino color. Then I am going to try my hand at a boucle yarn! I haven't picked the lucky roving yet, but I do have that merino/kid mohair from the spring fling that may work out.... As long as I get it done before the 23rd of July! I'll have this whole week of vacation to get going, but won't have any way to upload pictures where I am. I can however post from my phone and at least keep updated in a journal sense.

Of course I do need to finish up my first silk- it;s almost there! And ply it with the opal targhee. Better get on it! Updates when I can and good luck to all the "riders"!

First Silk and some other stuff

Thanks to all the helpful folks at the Spindlers yahoo group I gave my silk it's first spinning! It is mulberry silk in colorway Opal (from spinningbunny) and I have the custom dyed Targhee to match. I will ply them together once I am done. This is my first spindle full of the silk (it's a greensleeves Vixen- worked out great!)

As I was trying to take even a half decent photo of the silk (the luster makes it hard- especially with the flash) my older daughter immediately said "Take a picture of me"- so here she is in all her spaghettio glory.

I thought I'd try outside, but it was too dark already. I did manage to get a picture of some nice colors in the sky though (darn the power lines!)

And lastly- just for fun- here is a picture of my custom made Cascableles spindle. It spins like a dream- I love it and what an awesome guy Gabe is- super service.

Yeah it's been forever!

I know it has been forever since the last update......
I have new yarns that have been finished (whether they are recent or not is something else). I participated in the Spindlers yahoo group Dyeing4Spring Exchange. We had to dye 4oz of any fiber with any kind if light and wash fast dyes. I chose to dye some of the cormo fleece I have, some tussah silk, some bamboo, and some mohair with acid dyes. The bamboo didn't take much of the dyes since it is a plant fiber and truly takes fiber reactives better, but it was enough of a hint of color. There was blue, bright purple. teal green, and wood rose. I then took these and blended them on my drum carder to produce some batts which I pulled into roving. Since it was the first time ever carding and a fine fleece at that, I did end up with some neps. I kept a small bit of the roving to take a pic and to see how it spun up. Here it is- first the little roving ball and the spindle, then the bunch of fiber as it is drying.

The next picture is of the fantastic merino and kid mohair I received for the exchange from Karen C in MI.

Here are the yarns that I have finished up recently. A wonderful superwash merino in colorway Forget me not, an incredibly soft Targhee in Blueberry Patch (those are both from spinningbunny.com) some BFL spun on the spindles from the lock, my first skein of cotton- the boiled skein and also the sliver from which it was spun, a teal corrie plied with what was left of the ocean roving spun for the beaded yarn, and a skein of merino tencel that was just fabulous to spin in a colorway called Azurite.

Spring Fling and New Yarn

I finally have the picture of my Spring FLing package from Anne in MD. It is such a wonderful package with a big fluff of yak fiber (oooh so soft!) and natural silk for me to keep trying the dyeing. Also the book Knitting over the edge- which was on my wishlist, some lovely earrings handmade by Anne, purple (my favorite color) flowers, and some fun spring flower rubber stamps. That was a fun exchange!

I have now completed my first true novelty yarn. I made a two ply skein of beaded yarn. I think it turned out pretty good. The colors in the photo aren't quite true (maybe it's tiome to upgrade the camera!) but they should be deep and medium blue with aqua in there too. The lightest parts of the photo are what should be aqua...

Catch-up and Bummer fleece

Yes- I've been neglecting the blog lately. So busy. I have however managed to get some stuff done. I finished the sandalwood merino (1st picture) 2 ply, 400yds, 5.7oz. I also finished up a single in a colorway called Desert Summer (hand dyed by a woman from my local fiber arts center) it's about 4oz but I can't remember now how many yards....

I finished a poncho for my MIL made from a nylon organza ribbon and Berroco quest. Every time she saw the ribbon she said how much she loved it and it was just screaming "her colors" so now it is hers :)

I fninshed washing my three fleeces though I managed to felt one- what a bummer. I was adding rinse water (I have low water pressure so that doesn't actually do any damage to the fleece) and forgot about it when my 2.5yr old woke up from her nap and wanted snacks, to play outside, etc, etc. So the agitation started and was going at least ten minutes before I finally remembered it was in there. Well- at least it was the one I wasn't really excited about. It was a shetland cross in a very dark brown and dark brown is not my thing. But my other white (a Merino X) turned out nice though I don't have a pic. I did start doing a little carding. One little rolag is a blend of the BLX and some purple corrie, then there is a striped rolag of the same, a semi stripe-blend of rose, purple, and natural gray corrie with a little of the BLX, and one rolag of just the BLX. They are very soft and should spin nicely. I'm happy for my first effort at carding!

I also tried my hand at dyeing for the first time. I used a polypay roving I bought this past october at a local wool festival and a bamboo. I used fiber reactive dyes (that's what I had on-hand) and next time will try out some acid dyes. I used too much dye and the magenta kind of took over, but I think it still turned out pretty.

I've got another project on the bobbins- it's a coopworth roving in a colorway called "deep blue ocean" and I've fininshed spinning one ply- very fine (avg 34wpi) and will add beads to that fine strand and ply it with a little thicker (avg24wpi) of the same colorway. It will end up being a lacy scarf for my mom. There's also a little picture that shows the majority of my stash- I'm already a fiber addict and it's only been about 6 months since I started spinning! Pictures next of my Spring Fling package and hopefully the new yarn for my mom's scarf.