Tour de Fleece report, day 11

I’ve been spinning every day, more hours than I’d planned to. Once I sit down at the wheel, it’s hard for me to walk away. Yes, that means I’m having fun.

What I’ve made so far

None of these have been soaked yet, I’m sure they’ll all change once I get that done.

This is a two-ply yarn, made from two batts, one consisting of merino and sari silk and the other of merino and sparkles.

This is the leftovers from the merino/sparkles batt; I decided to leave this bit as singles.

Shetland two-ply, the top was dyed by Spunky Eclectic, in Pomegranate. This is by far the thinnest I've ever spun, it's a light fingering weight now, but we'll see what happens when it takes a bath.

I had a horrible time plying this, but the finished yarn is awesome. I’m interested to see if it (well, all of them, actually) blooms much. Either way, I’m loving this yarn.

My handdyed (at Yarn School) BFL, I'm calling the colorway Pink Wildflowers. This is 446 yards of chain-plied yarn, from 168 grams.

This is the rest of my Pink Wildflowers BFL, also chain-plied. This is worsted weight, 81 yards from 65 grams.

One funny thing about this BFL: I thought I started with 4 ounces, and it seemed to be taking forever. And I had to overfill my bobbin more than I ever have. I planned to two-ply it, but I didn’t want to wind it all off into a center-pull ball, which is why I ended up chain-plying it. And in the end, once I weighed it, I had 8 ounces!

Observations from the wheel

• spinning fine = slow going (Not necessarily in yards, but in weight, and in bobbin filling.)

• I’m starting to get more comfortable, I think, with my wheel’s ratios. This is a very good thing. Hopefully I’ll see more progress in this area as the Tour continues.

• Fibers I’m spinning for the first time: BFL (but this was already in progress when the Tour commenced) and Shetland. I’m working on Norwegian Long Wool now. There’ll be more new-to-me fibers as we continue on this Tour.

• Revelation: I’m a slow spinner. Hopefully that item above, about my wheel’s ratios, will help this (as will the practice, of course).

• I’m getting so impatient with myself that I’m really having trouble thinking of spinning more than 4 ounces of anything, even though if I had more of a yarn I’d probably be much more likely to find a project for it.

• I’m making fair progress toward meeting all my goals, which is great!

My current project

This is the first ply of a planned 3-ply yarn. The fiber is 4 ounces of Norwegian Long Wool from Spunky Eclectic, Kentucky Derby colorway. I'm loving these colors! Hoping for sock-weight once I'm finished.

Today I’ll work on more of this. According to my calculations, tomorrow is the half-way point of the tour.

How’s your July?

My Tour de Fleece starting line post