TdF & Ravellenics...

As soon as the Tour de Fleece over I was straight onto the Ravellenics.

I didn't manage to spin everything I had hoped during TdF, but at least I spun every day which in itself was a challenge for me.

Here's what I spun:

I managed to reduce my stash by 440g. I then added to the stash by purchasing 300g of Polwarth that I couldn't resist. I really enjoyed taking part in this and will look forward to participating again next year. I won a prize, and it was one of those wonderful prizes that I usually fail to win:

It's a hand dyed silk brick. I keep looking at it and touching it, wondering what it will become.
















So I signed up for the Ravellenics as a last minute thing and then wondered what on earth I was going to knit ~ I knew I wanted to use some of the yarn I spun during TdF. I finally decided on Pear Drop with the singles silk/merino yarn I had spun but wondered how it would work out as I usually stick to semi solid or tonal yarns for lace work. I worried that I would run out of yarn or that the yarn would keep breaking on me. Neither happened:

This is how the yarn looked after skeining and lightly fulling. I was very cautious with the fulling as I know there's a very fine line between fulling and ending up with an unusable mess.

The yarn was still a bit too energised for my liking at this stage so I set up the ball winder and skeiner at opposite ends of the room and let the yarn relax while travelling between them. This seemed to do the trick and removed the unwanted energy.

I used 93g of yarn.




I went to spinning today and came home with a bag of unknown fleece. There's 500g of crimpy sheepy lanolin scented beauty. Staples are 7" long, it's a fine and fairly soft fleece. It's definitely not Corridale. The lady who I got it from thinks that it may be Romney. I know Romney can vary enormously, I've had some awful carded Romney when I first started spinning which is why I thought I hated the stuff, then I got some carded top from a local coloured sheep breeder and it's one of the nicest fibres I have ever spun, so maybe this is Romney after all. A few of the very experienced spinners thought it could be a merino cross or halfbred because of the crimp:

I'm planning on flick carding just the tips and spinning it from the locks, in the grease. I just spun a mini sample skein and washed it to see how it finishes. I have it drying now by the fire on this extremely wet and grey cold day.