Despite being completely exhausted due to catching the red-eye back from Vegas Friday night, last night I managed to do a little towards my TDF goals.
Fiber was carded:
Torquoise Jacob Rolags
And a tiny sample of yarn was spun:
Babydoll singles on IST Spindle
Ooof. I think I am spun out for a while.
Top LH corner: Jacob from Marta – gold batts, mid dark singles, white batts, white yarn 3ply and 2 ply
Top RH: Mad Colors: Wild Side
Middle L: Fabulous Fibers: Summit
Middle: Drying Shetland fleeces
Bottom L + Middle: Drachenwolle
Bottom R: Dad’s cardigan
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If you remember I had goals. So how did I do?
Goal 1: Prepare lots of Jacob. I got about 100 g carded and a further 20 g waiting for the carder. Still have a long way to go before it is all finished.
Goal 2: Wash fleeces. Thanks to members of Team Suck Less and the FOAY group on Ravelry, I found out that my water is not hot enough to dissolve lanolin. So I had to change my methods and rewash the first few lots. Despite that I am only 3.5 mesh bags away from finishing the second fleece! For this fleece I got fancy and sorted out the fiber into different categories:
Where:
A) Least compacted and long clear locks
B) Back like A but compacted
C) Sides are slightly dirty and not as soft as A or B
D) End of legs – very compacted and not soft
E) Worst, as in dirtiest, locks. Fleece was skirted which means the really nasty bits were already removed.
Goal 3: Spin on my Trindle every day. I span every day but not always on my Trindle. I did, however, spin all the fiber I intended for the Trindle.
Goal 4: Knit Dad’s cardigan. Unfortunately, the last few days have been too hot too knit a thick cardigan but before the heat dome arrived I finished the left sleeve and I’m about a third into the right sleeve.
So all in all tour de fleece 2011 was a success.
Top: Finished the left sleeve of Dad’s cardigan
Color skeins: Mad Colors wild side chain plied. Well one was chained and then plied because I couldn’t chain fast enough. The singles were spun on Habetrot’s support spindle, plying on Bosworth mini.
Middle: Windswept Pippit moorit Shetland drying
White fibre and yarn: Marta Jacob fleece in batts and span as two ply (smaller skein) and three ply on Saacht Hi-lo Spindle
I span something not one of my goals this morning. Before breakfast even. I have been spinning this:
On a support spindle I bought at New Hampshire sheep and wool.
I found having it by my bed gave me something to do that was relaxing. So this morning I had enough yarn to make a 3-ply on my Bosworth mini:
You can only see the green and that was just about the only color that stayed whole. The rest barber-poled through out the skein. However, I think I quite like it. I need to wash it as I think I over plied the yarn and I need to see if it still over plied after being thoroughly cleaned and whacked.
I also combed the fiber I washed yesterday. Pippit is beautiful to comb but hard to spin because it has such long staples.
The Shetland that was not cleaned properly on Saturday seems to have cleaned up properly after three more washes. However, I bought some Power Scour for future cleaning as it took five washes in total for the water to run clear with Dawn dishsoap.
Other goals are continuing slowly. Dad’s cardigan’s sleeve is growing and my Trindle is getting fatter and the white Jacob is getting flicked.
When to the Tour de France takes place, spinners of the fiber kind join in with a Tour de Fleece. The idea is to set hand spinning goals to achieve while watching the cyclists get hot and sweaty. I have joined too many goals but it should be fun trying:
Goal 1:
Jacob Fleece - Washed
Process as much of the Jacob as possible. It is all washed but I have about a pound of a half that needs flicking and carding.
Goal 2:
Maryland 398
Windswept Pippit
Wash two Shetland Fleeces and comb and spin a sample of each.
Goal 3:
Spin on my Trindle every day and while at it, spin enough Fabulous Fibers Summit for making two swatches; regular 3 ply and Navajo 3 ply.
BFL Summit from Fabulous Fibers
Goal 4:
Knit on Dad’s cardigan as much as possible. It would be nice to be finished when I visit in August.
Swatch for Dad's Cardigan
So I joined four teams on Ravelry as part of the TDF as my new Avatar shows:
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copyright ©2011 cdavies
The theme for week 14 was motion. On the same week, there was a spinning challenge on my favorite group in Ravelry. I had to finish spinning a self-imposed amount of spinning by Sunday evening. Since spinning is motion I combined the weekly photo-theme with the spinning challenge. I took the photo using my camera on self-timer and tried to keep the spindle in front of the lens. This was not easy as usually the spindle moves down while I try to keep my hands in the same place. The picture above is where I was flicking the spindle to set it in motion.
Here is the other picture of me spinning that worked:
Both photos fit the theme really well but I chose the top one as I liked the blurred effect. However, the comments showed me that non-spinners found it hard to both see and know what is going on, so perhaps the second picture would have been more helpful. And the spindle is clearly in motion.
The fiber I am spinning was Gnomespun Shetland Combed Top. I am currently plying two singles together and hope to knit the Juneberry Triangle when the yarn is ready.
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Copyright © 2011 cgadavies All rights reserved.
I wanted to take a picture for this week’s topic (Vanishing Point) that wasn’t of a road or railway or river or path going off into the distance. Mainly because the roads aren’t that exciting or straight around here. So after winding some hand-spun yarn onto my niddy noddy and staring at it over dinner, I realised its potential. The B&W shot is best as the yarn is white and pink, which was a little distracting from the theme.
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Copyright © 2011 cgadavies. All rights reserved.
Back in August I took this photo to show you why I must stop buying yarn and fiber. Murphy is there for scale, and attention. BTW he is a long cat.
This is the yarn I bought in July and August. There was fiber as well. Oh, it doesn’t include the yarn and fiber I left with my parents to work on when I am visiting. I find it annoying to have to pack knitting and spinning projects and as I visit often, I thought it was worthwhile to have, ahem, two stashes.
Coopworth Dark Gray Swatch
I even span the fiber to order! I wanted to see if I could make something worsted weight and I could.
Obligatory Handspun with Dime Photo
Spindle: Ashford Student (70 g)
Fiber: Louet Coopworth Dark Gray
Date of Spinning: January 2010
Needles: US 9/5.5 mm
Size: 13 stitches x ~20 rows
Date of Swatch: March 2010
Cast on 13 stitches
Work 2 ridges garter stitch
Stockinette for 15 rows with sl, kl and k1, p1 at start and end of each row respectively.
Work 2 ridges garter stitch
Bind off
Lab Cat 