Tour de Fleece continued

Well, slowly slowly I spun the rest of the fiber I posted last time. I had some brown and then some brown with white and blue striped through it. I spun them both up, with a bit of difficulty. I had to really predraft it down to about the thickness I wanted for the single itself.


Then I plied the brown and the striped together. It's pretty thick, but I like the end result. I only ended up with about 50 yards, so maybe I can use it for the cuffs of a jacket or sweater. Not much more than that...I'll try to snap a pic of the finished skein that'll be a bit more appealing.



I have some more carded fiber in a nifty purple and some combed merino in a melony/mango-y kind of color. That's up next!

T d' F day 1

I'm off to a slow start on the Tour de Fleece... no surprise there. I got in about a half hour today et voila!



This is some of the fiber left from when I purchased my hand spindle. I'm having some trouble with it because it is very smooth and I can't seem to get the tension right. I think I'll need to do some better predrafting on what's left before I continue with it. Can anyone say "felt me?"

But a wider view to show off my equipment for the Tour (sans flash, and you can see my messy apartment in the background):

My Ashford Traditional, aquired "new in the box" for a pretty good deal via Ebay. The seller did fail to mention that it was actually new in 1983. It really hadn't ever been taken out or assembled, but the pieces were wrapped up in a New Zealand newspaper from Dec 1983! Quite a surprise. But I love it. It's so cute and, well, traditional!. I'm slowly getting the hang of things. I spun enough roving (kindly given to me by a friend with her own sheep) to knit up a shawl that I like to describe as "rustic." I'll have to post a picture soon.

So on with the Tour! Better luck tomorrow...