I can't believe that a whole year has gone by since I took part in my first Tour de Fleece on Ravelry. It's a spinning event, timed to coincide with the Tour de France. The aim is to spin every day, from June 30th to July 22nd, with days of rest on July 10th and 17th (just like the Tour itself!) The challenge day is on July 16th, where you are meant to challenge yourself to try something tricky or out of your comfort zone. The cyclists will be doing their toughest mountain stage on this day!
I have a few goals that I'd like to achieve during the Tour. Firstly, I'd like to spin up my collection of British breed samples that I bought from Hilltop Cloud earlier in the year. Then I will use the yarn to knit a Sheep Heid hat (or perhaps a Sheep Heid-ish cushion cover.)
Today I have spun up the two Bluefaced Leicester samples - one oatmeal and the other brown. They are still on the bobbins at the moment. I have ordered some more bobbins today (not very well prepared for the TDF was I?!) along with a niddy noddy that makes a smaller skein. So I have no idea of yardage at the moment. I will need to wind each yarn into a centre pull ball so that I can ply from both ends!
Another of my goals is to spin some fibre and get enough yardage to knit myself a pair of socks (around 400 metres), so I have chosen some suitable fibre from my stash of Picperfic's gorgeous fluff! It's a mix of 70% superwash merino and 30% trilobal nylon. Take a look!
I've made a start on spinning this. It drafts pretty easily, I just hope that I'm making it fine enough. I'd like to N-ply it to retain the colour changes, but may have to resort to normal plying to get the yardage. We shall see! Here's how it's looking so far.
I'm pleased with how Day 1 has gone. See you tomorrow for a report on Day 2! xxx
5 comments:
I had heard of the Tour de Fleece, but didn't know exactly what was involved, and good grief that's a lot of spinning!! Good luck with it! And I love that green and blue. :)
I have blogged my day one too...I love your fleece samples and your day 1 yarn, great job :)
Obviously I'm following the lycra based tour not the fibre one but I'll be thinking of you spinning away and hope you have a few stage victories.
Wow! LOve the sock yarn colours! Think I'll need another lesson in the summer hols ;-) Rosx
oh the tour de fleece... i'm not participating this year because of our big move, but i plan to live vicariously through you! :)
i love your fleeces of britain project!
and that aqua/lime fiber is gorgeous! yay tour! :)
-melissa
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