the finish line

Phew! with a sigh of relief, satisfaction, and a big ouchy groan as I rub my aching legs – I have calves of steel now! – the Tour de Fleece is over.

My final yarn, the CMF BFL/dyed merino 3ply, cam in at a stonking 580m. Now wonder it felt like such a mission to spin! It’s still drying so my pics of it are unwashed & whacked:

purple people eater

The plying of it felt like it took almost as long as the spinning! I do like the end result, in my book you can never go too far wrong with aubergine, but with hindsight I wish I’d picked out a sagey merino to ply it with as I think the aubergine dominates too much.  But then I had aubergine in already and didn’t have sage so that would have meant I couldn’t spin this during the TdF and I really wanted to – I have no patience!

I got the finished yarns together for a final piccy:

I’m so pleased with what I’ve managed, I feel I’ve learned a lot (that bunnies really are evil, for one) and that my spinning has really improved.

I challenged myself to:

• spin a luxury fibre I was scared of: camel/silk – check!
• spin a low twist singles yarn – check!
• spin up some angora/merino I was scared of – umm, ok, not check but not really my fault! turns out I was right to be scared!
• get more confident spinning from batts: use up stashed ones I had made or been gifted – check, check, check!

Final stats: 2758m plied yarn, 6381m of singles. It’s a lot less than some people have spun on the tour, but about as much as I could do, wrists, legs and (oh yes) life allowing. I’m so pleased I took part, I feel a lot more confident about my spinning now and am looking forward to next year already!

For now though, I think I need a mindless knitting project…!

prize-tastic!

I can’t quite believe it, but the last lot of TdF spinning – green 3-ply and sparkly black – won a prize! I posted the pics in the daily TdF photo thread on Ravelry and 111 people clicked on its (love) button (that last bit sounds really dodgy if you’re not on Rav…). I’m so chuffed!

I was even more pleased when I found out I could pick my prize from a selection donated for the Tour, and I got to pick from moonlightbaker’s shop on Etsy – I love her stuff! I picked some beauteous green merino/tencel batts called ‘Sea Glass’ which I can’t link to because she’s taken them out of the shop to send to me! Muahahaha! Mine allmiiiine!

In TdF news, I’m working on another 3ply from some CMF pencil roving – am going to be really upset when this is gone as it’s the last lot and I really doubt I can afford any more! So I’m trying to eke out all the yardage I can from it by spinning 2 bobbins CMF, one plain aubergine merino. The roving is BFL in ‘Stonehenge’ – my favourite of their many gorgeous colourways I think.

Druids go mad for it

I’ve also made a start on spinning up some Corriedale fleece which I started washing a while back but hadn’t spun any of. I’ve got just over 8oz and haven’t lost too much in the washing/carding process so think I’ll be able to get enough for a project out of it. This is 25g, 2ply and approx 70m I think – it’s hard to count the wraps on this teeny niddy-noddy!  I haven’t measured the wpi but it seems to want to spin reeeeally fine. It’s really lovely and squooshy and hasn’t even had another wash yet – it’s still a bit greasy so will have to see what happens when I wash it again. It’s all a learning experience!

mmm, bouncy

finito!

My 3 ply Corriedale is finally finished -  actually I plied it a couple of days ago but it’s taken so long to dry after washing & whacking that I hadn’t wanted to take pics of it yet!

3ply CMF Corriedale in 'Eire'

I’m very very pleased with it – it’s so even and I love the way the colours have merged and blended. To me it shows a marked improvement in my spinning, which is one of the things I wanted to achieve by doing the Tour de Fleece.

5p for scale!

Talking of achieving – I won a rosette at the weekend for the first time in about 20 years! The Singleton Show was on at the Weald & Downland Museum, and I’d spun up a couple of entries and posted them in a while back, thinking ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’, and then more or less forgotten about it. I wasn’t feeling too great on Sunday so in fact I ended up not going to the show, but Annie called me from the show to tell me I’d won a FIRST in the Novice Spinners class – how cool is that?!

Le Proof