the Finish Line!

Hurrah! Hurrah! the finish line!!!! I don't how much of my original goal I've managed to meet. Here is a picture of 2 whole bobbin's, and not showing is about 1/2 of a third. I've used about 4 oz so far of Sassy, the Corrie/Dorset.

I've decided, at the end of the Tour, that although I spun and plied A LOT of yarn, I still didn't meet the goal of spinning 12-1600yds of Sassy.



So.....I'm gonna do the red jersey instead of the yellow jersey. I've accomplished a lot, but not what I wanted to. Sometimes that happens. The red jersey is for when you've fought and played hard, but just couldn't get to first place. I think that's just fine!

Lambtown

Here's to Lambtown, Dixon, CA on Saturday, the 19th of July. I was part of the Hangtown Fiber Guild team for
the Sheep to Shawl competition. I have finally figured out how to down-load pictures from my phone, cause my camera batteries where dead.

This first picture of Pam weaving on the loom and Joany on the far right talking to the public.



The second picture is of Barbara on the left and Charlotte-sitting- at the carding table. Not shown is our fearless leader, Nancy. She did all the plying and making sure that Joany, Barbara and I spun to a standard and an evenness that was required for the weaving.


BTW: we won!

Picture Rich Stats.....

...so far, I've managed to spin approximately 1300 yards of 2 ply, AND NOT ONE INCH OF IT IS THE STUFF FOR THE ORIGINAL CHALLENGE!

from top to bottom, the first picture is 5 20yd/2 ply sample skeins and 1 67 yd/2 ply sample skein of the some of the stuff that we dyed in the previous post.



the second picture is a broken black buffalo/merino 2 ply that I picked up at ebay; 4 oz got me 262 yds of plush softeness. And the purple is the stuff that was in time out for over a year, 'the crash at turn 5' stuff. I thought I wrote it down, but I think I spun about 300+ yds of 2 ply. I'll recount when it's finished drying. It's almost there.











the third picture is of 2 batts from the etsy shop of 'enchanted knoll'. I love her stuff. The orangey looking one is called 'Red Dirt Girl' and the black one is called 'Phoenix'. Both are superwash merino with sari silk and angelina. Red Dirt came in at 92 yds and Phoenix came in at 262 yds.













Last but not least is 462 yds of black shetland from StoneHaven Farms in Oregon. This stuff spun up to a round 19 wpi of 2 ply. Not too bad if I do say so myself.









Sorry for the washed out pictures in the sun, its the only way I can even get close to an accurate color with my ancient camera.

Dye Day Pron!

On Tuesday of this week, instead of spinning for the Tour de Fleece, my friend Charlie and I spent most of the morning-BEFORE it got to be 106F-dyeing 1lb and 2lb lots of fiber with acid dyes. We let them sit in black plastic on the drive way to set, then decanted and rinsed yesterday and today. You can see the riot of shades, tints and hues that we got. What fun!!! We figure that we dyed about 16 lbs worth of a Suffolk/Corriedale cross. A tough, but easy to spin wool that isn't the softest, but not very scratchy and probably have to work at it to get it to felt. Perfect for socks and mittens.

Remember...

...last year, the crash and burn at turn 5? go here to see the spectacular crash. I was so disappointed with the 'stuff' that I could only bag it in a zip lock with a sprig of lavender and relegate it to the back of the closet for an extended time out. Today I took it out of time out, and carefully unwound the rest and let it rejoin the sibling that behaved. Tomorrow I will ply, I think its learned its lesson. Maybe then I can start the major project of the Tour: 1200-1600 yds of 2 ply.



Today I spun the rest of 'Phoenix' from EnchantedKnoll at etsy. Very nice and shiny and soft. Wonderful! I'll ply it later in the week, when the last bobbin has had a chance to relax and catch up to its sibling. A silky supersoft washable merino with sari silk in red and gold with gold Angelina. Hard to believe that she labels this as MW Sock batts.




I also plyed the last 2 oz of merino/buffalo mix that I dyed a broken black. Very interesting. Very soft!
This is a soft dark grey with red highlights. Interesting.






Sorry for the dark pix: my digital is from the stone age and I was trying to take pix with the flash and a spot with a sunlite bulb. I was hoping that the flash would bounce off the window and provide a little back light. OH! Well! Maybe too much little dog nose on the window???

Let's Roll!!!

the tour has started!!!!

I am slightly non-plussed that the only bobbin that I have empty is the one that needs to be glued back together. Everything else needs to be finished spinning for the single and/or plied to clear the bobbins. How's that for planning?

Ah! well! will try to post pictures today or tomorrow.

goals

for the tour: to try to spin a little bit every day. The big goal is to spin enough of a suffolk/corrie fleece to have 1200-1600 yds of 2 ply for a dyeing demo in August at the guild dye day.

Tour de Fleece 2008

Tour de Fleece 2008


the challenge this year is to spin from stash. we'll see how it goes.