Tour De Fleece

Today I spent 4 hours plying the yarn that I spun over the first days of the tour.  I have decided that Shetland Wool is not pleasant to ply when it is spun to a lace weight yarn. Masham Wool is wonderful as a thick and thin yarn. It’s even better plyed.  BFL is always wonderful to spin and ply.

I am trying not only to spin as much of my fiber stash as possible.  I am also trying to spin as many different breeds of sheep as well.  Each breed spins a little differently.  I am also trying to spin as many British  Heritage Sheep fleeces, batts and braids that I have.

Eight skins were plied today. There were 4 four ounce bobbins and 4 smaller skeins for the 52 Yarn’s to Spin Before You Cast Off Book. I am really too tired to take them all out of their bags tonight, so I hope tomorrow will be ok for pictures.

I think that because of my sore Achilles Tendon I will do most of my Spinning on my classic Louet S-15.  I also found out today that the Louet S-96 in Oak is no longer being made and I will have to settle for an S-95. I also found out that it will not ship until Mid-September.  That means that I will not have it for the Sheep Thrills Fiber Retreat next month. All I can say is it’s a bummer to have to wait so long for a birthday present.

Tour de Fleece 2017

My first spin of this years Tour de Fleece was 8 ounces of Superwash BFL dyed by Into The Whriled in 2012. I love the roving that they dye, so here is the link, www.intothewhirled.com. Yes i am stash busting for this years Tour de Fleece. I was trying to spin a fractial, I did not quite make it. Since it took almost an hour to skein and photograph, I am counting it towards the first 3 days os spinning.

Tour de Fleece

Tour de Fleece is a no go again today. The picture was taken by Matthew, he is just practicing. 

Recovery Day 2

Today Teri and I did some deep cleaning. Teri did all the heavy lifting, so we have one clean closet. Maybe a few more closets will be done before Teri leaves. As a reward I took Teri out for a pedicure.   I have been busy icing my hand and keeping it elevated.  I still feel very tired and out of it.  I am hoping as my hand heals I will get more energy back. 

I am taking an injury day for today's Tour de Fleece. I am not sure if I can manage to keep my hand down for more than a few minutes at a time.  I am also not sure if my hand is up to weaving or knitting yet.  So I am taking things one day at a time.  

Day 13

Today is day 13 of Eric being home sick.  The good news is that he is starting to feel better.  John still needs to kick this cold. So I spent the day spinning. I managed to spin 8 ounces of wool today.  I am in the middle of plying the yarn now.  

With all that spinning I am surprised that I did not kick the headache that woke me up at 4 am. Usually I find spinning very relaxing. I hope that this headache is gone by tomorrow.  I think it might be do to both guys being sick and me not getting enough sleep. I need to get everything back in control in the house.  

Sleep is Good

Eric and I had a laid back day. Lisa sent extra help so I got a nice long nap.  I even had enough energy after the nap to tackle a few chores and do some spinning tonight for the Tour de Fleece. I will wash and thwack it tomorrow. 

An Unwelcome Guest

Today makes the arrival of a very unwelcome guest in our home.  Eric's cold of 10 days has turned into a secondary infection and all that goes along with it. Right now I am waiting to run the first load of eyrpy laundry to finish so that I can start the second load before bed tonight.  I am hoping that Eric sleeps tonight. 

I have not had much energy for spinning in the Tour de Fleece today, I only spun 2/3's of a 4 ounce braid. I did manage to get 2 of the 3 skeins I spun yesterday soaked and thwacked.  They are drying in the garage tonight. The birds living on the patio don't like the sound of thwacking and fly away as soon as they hear me coming outside.  I am trying to keep up with the soaking and thwacking of the newly spun yarn so that at the end of the month I am not left with an overflowing sink of yarn that needs finishing.  

To tell you how tired I am. John asked what I wanted for dinner tonight and I asked for a half of a roast beef sandwich. He came in the door and announced that instead of mayo on my sandwich, he had them put on soy sauce. My reaction was, oh well I will just try something new, heck I might even like it. I was too tired to noticed that he pick up my 2 favorite dishes from my favorite Chinese restaurant, China Phoenix. I have got a very wonderful husband.  

I plan on spending the day resting with Eric tomorrow. This run of days with an average of 4 hours of sleep a night is beginning to get to me.  I really don't know if that has to do with giving up cola or not being 30 any more.  All I know is that my body has decided that it needs more sleep.  

Tour de Fleece Day 2

2 skeins spun today. The top skein is from Cloudlover.com.  The bottom skein is from Into The Whirled .com.  Both wee fun to spin.  Yes I got all 5 loads of laundry done too. 

Tour de Fleece 2014

Day 1.  The second picture is a single ply mohair in red and blue.  The first one is a Cloudlover super wash BFL in Neptune's Wrath.  

Exploding Soda Cans and More

Well I was going to write about spinning and the Tour de Fleece tonight after all I did have a very good day of spinning. After some cleaning this morning I managed to spin for most of the day. No, I was very good and did not spin or knit while I was in Eric's ISP. I spun and plied new yarn until my hands were to tired to spin.  I was going to post a few pictures. Maybe even comment about how yarn drys faster when the outside temperature is 110f with a humidity level of 7 percent verses 102f with a humidity level of 24 percent.

That all changed when I was about to rotate the soda in the pantry tonight. Lets just start out by saying I did take the soda out of the pantry but none went in. I had 1 case of Serria Mist that had managed to leak. One can even had no visible signs of leakage or holes but was empty anyway. By the way when the soda gets to that point it smells yucky.  The mess on the floor was like someone had poured simple syrup on the floor and walked away. With 409 I did manage to clean up some of the mess. I check the other  case in the pantry and it seemed to be going bad too. So I drained all 24 cans, yes I did save the tabs for Eric to take to the Ronald McDonald house.  Then I went about dragging everything out of the dining room, kitchen and most of the laundry room floor. I then locked Scooba in the pantry for a few minutes and he is now busy cleaning the freshly mopped floor again today.

So my game plan for tomorrow is to completely empty the pantry floor. I was not about to start that project at 10pm after a busy day. I will clean or toss everything that is removed.  I will again lock Scooba in the pantry and let him do his thing. After all that is done I plan on finding a different place for everything on the pantry floor. If I can move after all of that then and only then will I spin some yarn tomorrow.

The lesson that I am taking away from this is not to store soda on the pantry floor if the pantry is too hot to put things like chocolate in it in the summer. Also don't buy so much soda at once even if it is on sale. And for goodness sake keep track of the expiration dates. Don't assume that just because you did not open the case yet that every thing is good.

I am now inclined to let Scooba go about his business and call it a night. I will deal with the mess in the morning.

Tour De Fleece Day 2

Well it is that time of year again. Time for the annual Tour De Fleece. I think I signed up for a couple of teams. Yesterday got off to a rocky start. However today was fantastic. I spun, plied and washed over 200 yards in mini skeins. A mini skein is when I start out with any amount less than 1 ounce. Usually in the 1/4 to 1/2 ounce range. I have 9 mini skeins in the garage drying, I am sure they will all be dry by morning since the high was over 110f today. 

After everything got plied and washed I started spinning again. I am using my Louet spinning wheel for some larger skeins and every one of my spindles. If I can't play with all my spindles during the Tour De Fleece when can I get away with having so many spindles out at once?

My goal is a lofty one this year. I want to spin enough yarn to bring in at least 1 of my overflow bins of roving and fiber in from the garage. I am thinking of putting all the Tour De Fleece yarn in a basket to see just how much I can spin in the next couple of weeks.

This does bring up the conundrum of the Tour De Fleece. I am still on a yarn diet and for the most part doing very well, but the Whole idea of Tour De fleece is to set a goal to learn something new, this is not going to happen with Eric on the road to recovery. Perhaps spin a very special skein of yarn with some wonderful fiber that I don't spin often, I don't have the skills or have planned for that one. So this basically leaves volumes of yarn spun. I guess I will have lots of yarn for very creative projects in the coming months.

Well I hear the washer and dryer calling my name so it is time to call it tonight.

It is Tuesday All Day

I am having a very surprising good day today. Eric work up with a fever of 99.5 and a stuffy nose. So needless to say, we got off to a very slow start. I got my mojo realigned about 10:30am. After that things went quite well.

Three rooms got a visit from Roomba. The master bath mats got washed and dried in the sun, it only took 2 hours for that crispy dry. The master bathroom was mopped. One load of laundry was washed and hung to dry. Two loads of laundry were folded, no they were not put away yet. I did not have that much ambition today. All the odd socks were matched up and at least 6 pairs were reclaimed from the odd sock basket, yeah me!!!  I caught up on part of the back filing and found that I did not need everything so the shredder got a real work out, half a basket shredded!!!

I am way behind on my spinning for Tour de Fleece. My plan was to get mounds of spinning done. the reality is that some days only a 12 to 24 inches are getting spun. My goal was to have all my WIP off all the spindles, not so much now. So I will be happy with what I have and not stock up on fleece and roving before next years tour. To have a less lofty goal and go for pretty and artsy instead of volume.

I really have to say that today lacked a  lot of pre planning such as not having Scooba charged so that I could get Eric,s floor mopped after vacuuming with Rumba. I also need to fire the lady in charge of snacks, she really feel short of having the right crunchy food in the house today.

My goal for tomorrow is to get Mondays errands done. I will really get that package out to Teri. I have help for 4 hours tomorrow. Well it is time to go make dinner. I might not barbecue the steaks the rain just started.

Tour de Fleece

OK I know its been a week since I blogged but I thought I would share the first bit of fleece that I finished. This is ready to be wound into usable balls for knitting. Yes I swear that they are all from the same 4 ounce braid. With no different dye lots.

The dyeing of the braid was done by Cloudlover
The colorway is Sakura.
It is 50% Moreno , 50% Silk. Yes I did find the silk a challenge to spin, but isn't that what the Tour De fleece is all about.

Since I plan on using a different vendor for each item spun in the tour I will give you the link to each shop as I show the photos. The is the link to Natalie's shop  Cloudlover . And Just in case you were wondering this will be made into a top down shawl for me.

Currently on the spindle I have Easter Egg BFL and It is a dream to spin. I like the long staples of the fibre. I like everything I have gotten from Rachel so far. Don't forget to check out her soap, even my fussy skin likes it.

I have one more batt lined up after that by Kathy, of Unique Designs by Kathy Sky Blue Batt. I am also a fan of Kathy's hand spun yarn.

I am still practicing on the wheel but I have a while to go before I am happy with that yarn. Right now that wheel spun yarn is suitable for rugs, place mats or coasters. So if you need something for those projects let me know and we can work something out.

Well it is time to get back to work. Laundry and cooking await me.