Tour de Fleece Day 8 ~ Challenge Day

Day 8 was a challenge day, for me this meant taking a break from spinning the brown/grey half bred to continue working on spinning some very fine Polwarth singles:

I also washed 4 bags of fleece which is till drying, did a bit of combing and plied some of the brown half bred, which is also still drying. Today I hope to comb some more fibre and spin/ply more of the brown!

Tour de Fleece 2016

It's that time of year again, and this year I actually managed to remember to sign up for the Tour de Fleece spin along over on Ravelry which starts tomorrow. It runs July 2nd - 24th. I missed it for the past couple of years. Hopefully it will help me be more focussed and time-organised with my fibre prep and spinning. This year I joined the Lantern Rouge and the Raw Wool Lovers Team.

So, I've been busy prepping and here are my TdF goals for 2016:

1. To continue washing and combing this gorgeous brown/grey half bred fleece that has been lurking in my cupboard for almost a year, and to hopefully make a start on spinning it:

I've scoured and combed for 93g of nests so far.

2. To spin more of this lovely combed polwarth fleece:

3.To dye my remaining white half bred fleece, comb it and spin at least a sample skein.

I will post any progress I make over the next few weeks. I'm excited to be taking part again.

I was trying to cover all bases for myself in having white, coloured and dyed fleece, if I get bored with one I can move to another and so on. I doubt I will even get all of the brown/grey fleece washed and dried as it weighs 2.8kg, that's a lot of fibre to wash in batches. I got a bit of a production line going with it today, but looking at it  now still laid on the table ~ I don't seem to have made much of a dent in it!

Friday Finish.

The HyperNoro scarf is all finished, I love the lightness of this scarf ~ it weighs next to nothing but drapes beautifully. The yarn felt quite crunchy before I soaked and blocked it but it's softened up nicely and developed a slight halo ~

And here are some pics of the Orchard fibre I spun, that's now finished too!

Singles

'N' plying

Finished skein
NZ Halfbred fibre
Orchard colourway
250 metres
Navajo Plied
sport weight












Now to decide what to make next. I think a bit more spinning, possibly this little beauty:

This is an 85% Polwarth & 15% silk blend and is dyed randomly. Maybe I will fractal spin this one and see what happens!

Dyeing Combed Top~

A productive day so far, in pictures:

Polwarth, 160g

Polwarth, 125g

Merino, 25g knots

Tarndie Polwarth ...all finished!

I managed to sneak in a little extra spinning time over the last week and got the Tarndie Polwarth finished:



All the skeins together

Natural ~ 95 g, 326 mtrs

Chocolate ~ 50g, 182 mtrs
Grey ~ 50g, 180 mtrs


Beautiful fibre that was an absolute pleasure to spin. The finished yarn is a fingering weight and is N plyed, it's a nice and soft bouncy yarn.