Tour de Fleece 2011 Round Up

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.

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TDF Day 3: Other spinning

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.

TDF Day 2

I have finished flicking and carding the Jacob I dyed yellow. My goal this week is to flick 200 g of white so that on Saturday I can dye fiber to make a color wheel.

MD398 is not clean enough so tomorrow I am going to rewash the locks I started yesterday. Combing was tough because the fiber was so greasy. I should also look for a source of power-scourer just in case more washing isn’t enough. However, spinning the top was lovely. I adore spinning Shetland wool and sometimes wonder why I bother with anything else.

I washed some of Pippit – I need a better way to take the locks from the fleece as last night it was too late to unroll the whole fleece so I just grabbed the nearest loss bits. However, I think it was the back leg as it is covered in VM. The fiber washed up nicely; I used lower temperature water, more soap and and extra rinse at the end.

I still have a few hours and hope to spin with my Trindle and knit on Dad’s cardigan.

Tour De Fleece Day 1

Adventures with Fleece

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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