Last Sunday was the last day of the Tour de Fleece, and I managed to still get some more spinning in. Of course, I have not finished my newest monochrome spinning project yet. So here is my photo of the result!
The large, colourful skein started out like this:
I combined them into 32 rolags, together with a bit of firestar. The result is a nice surprise!
The silver fibre started out like this:
I made 48 rolags out of these 300 grams of fibre, and I have spun a little over a third during the Tour de Fleece.
This year’s Tour was less productive for me than previous Tours, because of the ongoing heatwave here in The Netherlands. My body doesn’t like heat, especially the ridicilously high temperatures of last week (37 degrees Celsius!). I have mild orthostatic intolerance, and heat worsens it. On Friday, the hottest day yet, I laid in bed almost the whole day because sitting or standing up gave me a headache and made me feel dizzy. Fortunately, on Saturday the weather changed, and I felt alive again!
On those hot 30+ days I hardly spun at all, so I’m quite amazed that I still managed to spin a nice amount of yarn. I also really enjoyed these two contrasting projects. The colourful one is still lying close by for admiring and petting. The silver one is still in progress, and I managed to fill up another 5 spindles since Sunday. I’ve passed the halfway mark!
After spinning the silver, I may decide to weave something with the colourful yarn. I’m looking forward to picking up weaving again after hibernating my loom for more than half a year. It’s winking at me from its resting spot, so it’s time to get it out again. I don’t know yet what the silver yarn will become, but I may knit a small cardigan/shrug type of garment. For now, I just keep on spinning.
Update
My final Tour de Fleece meterage is quite high! The colourful skein turned out to be 1167 meters, and I have spun about 1350 meters of singles of the silver fibre. That means that I have spun 1167 * 3 = 3500 meters of coloured singles, plus 1350 meters of silver singles, plus 1167 meters of plying – that’s about 6 kilometers of spinning/plying!
I participated in the MirkwoodArts team again this year, and I apparently spun the most yardage in the group, which means that I have won a prize! Tibor is making me a commemorative Smaug spindle:
It’s really unexpected, and I’m very grateful! Smaug will be well-fed on a high-fibre diet here 🙂
Congratulations on winning a prize for the most yarn spun! Wow, I used my wheel almost every day spinning thick stuff and I never had near that much even with the plying added in.
Did you spin a bunch of it from pencil roving?
I thought your spindles looked respectably full. You must be spinning teeny weeny stuff. I have been spinning thicker 2 and 3 ply for the wider setts on my adjustable Spriggs Continuous Weaving Looms.
Thank you, Sheila, I did not expect to win, frankly, but I’m very grateful for Tibor’s generosity!
I did not spin from pencil roving. I have a blending board, and before starting the Tour I blended two braids of roving together with some firestar to form a set of rolags. I love spinning rolags on my spindle, because they have a very practical small size, and I love blending fibre and colours, so it ticks two boxes 🙂
I actually tried to spin a bit thicker this time, but apparently I’m not able to anymore, because it still turned out to be a light fingering weight after chain plying it…
But I have also spun 2-ply cobweb weight a while ago, so this is already improvement 😉
I heard the same thing from other people: at first they want to spin thinner and more even, so they practice and achieve that. Then, once they see the charm of thicker, more rustic yarn as well, they are stuck at spinning frog hair! And it’s quite hard to spin thicker again.
I’ve just visited your blog to admire your spinning. Your finished yarn looks so nice, soft and fluffy! Congratulations!