Today it starts: the Tour de Fleece of 2018! Spinners around the world take out their wheels, polish their spindles, and prepare their fibres to participate in this yearly event that coincides with the Tour de France, a small cycle event in France and surrounding countries.
Just kidding! But the Tour de Fleece is quite the event. On Ravelry, Facebook, Instagram, and other social media, spinners chat and meet and show their progress every day. They spin inside, outside, in private, in public, and it’s all for good fun.
Before I can start spinning, I need to prep my fibres. As usual, I prefer to spin on my supported hand spindles. I have not decided yet which spindles I will use, probably those by Malcolm Fielding, my Glasspins, and my MirkwoodArts spindles. But it all depends on how much time I have to spin. I have prepared some fibre to start with, and it may last me the whole Tour.
During a previous Tour de Fleece, I won a braid of Undercover Otter fibres at the spinning event of Cross & Woods, my local yarn store. Later, I bought a skein of smooth and soft Hedgehog Fibres in their sale. And I was thinking, what if I combine these two and blend them together? They both have very bright, cheery colours, and they share their green/yellow shade, more or less. It might work, or it might clash…
I decided to give it a go. I divided each braid into 32 pieces. Then I combined one piece of each braid with a bit of white faux cashmere and a sprinkling of trilobal nylon (firestar). I blended them together on my blending board and created 32 rolags in soft, joyful colours.
Look at those cheery little fellows! They’re soft, colourful, and inspiring. I can’t wait to start spinning. At what time do those cyclists start their little tournament again?
