fin - Tour de Fleece 2016

I can't really say that I've crossed the finish line, I've done much less than I'd hoped. But I did spin most days of the three weeks, and have found much pleasure in this project.

I've been dg-combing locks individually by hand (or rather a tuft of locks at a time). A method I was taught on my very first spinning lesson. The results are great, you have in your hand a lock with all fibres separated and completely parallel. I did try dizzing the result but that took too much time with no benefit really, spinning the combed locks works very well.

 Having said I've not done as much as I'd hoped, I really don't know what yardage I have there. The singles spun out very fine, and I went with that.

I've plied, washed and knit some samples. The top one is a 3-ply, still thinner than I'd like for the project I have in mind. The bottom one uses two strands of 2-ply (ie four plies) and that looks neater and is closer to the gauge that I want. But spinning 1200 yards of 4 plies - that's a lot more spinning!

I'm now less sure about the project. I do want to knit one of these, and while spinning I've been thinking this Shetland would be perfect. but now I'm not so sure. The colour of this yarn is a fairly nice fawn, but looks a bit rustic. I may keep looking for the perfect pattern for this fleece. And buy some fibre in a light grey at Fibre East. (The very light colour of the Illas Cíes shown in the pattern looks terrific and will suit me.)

Tour de Fleece, stage 9

The problem with sticking to one big project through an event is that the photos are much the same. I've tried a different angle here, showing the fleece.

I'm pulling locks from the raw, dirty, greasy fleece and dog-combing both ends of each, for a well-separated, parallel handful of fibres. This is a technique I was shown on my very first spinning lesson, and one I find more therapeutic than using the big combs, with much the same result.

The fleece isn't so dirty, my hands and wheel are staying pretty clean, and I'm sure the lanolin is doing my skin some good. I can't wait to see whether the colour lightens when the yarn is finally washed.

One interesting thing is the variation in shade from light to dark. I'm now planning to 3-ply the very fine singles, a true 3-ply rather than navajo, so that might blend that variation a bit.

I'm enjoying this so much, it was difficult to take a rest day yesterday (Monday) but today's stage (10) is 'hilly' so I'll start a new bobbin, put in a bit of effort later today and make some more progress.

Tour de Fleece 2016 day 5

Here we are at day 5 already. There doesn't look much on this bobbin but it's drawing out very fine. Not what I intended but I'm going with it - it may be the finest I've spun. And it's fun.

I decided to use the Tour de Fleece spinning time to spin this fleece. It came from Fibre East last year. A Shetland fleece in a nice colour, good locks, still in grease but very clean.

 I decided to use a technique I was taught on my first spinning lesson. It involves holding each lock, combing with a dog-comb, turning the lock around and combing the other end. I prefer the dog-comb to a flick-carder. The result is a well-separated and parallel lock.

It's not fast work, I'm combing as I go, but this isn't a race!!