Successful Tour!

Today marks the end of the Tour de Fleece. I finished a 2 ply fractal spin today. I'm very happy with it. Its called Bifrost - a polwarth wool by etsy seller Kelpie Fibers. I love how happy this yarn is. I'm not sure what I'll make out of it, but I'm leaning towards mittens.

And here is a group photo of all the yarns spun during the tour. I'm very happy with the lot of them. I didn't spin as much as I would have liked but things like work kept getting in the way. But work I must, if I want to buy fiber to spin that is.

I didn't really set any concrete goals for myself - other than play with the art yarns a bit. I did manage to spin 3 different art yarns. The first one is the beehives that I already blogged about. I also did a whole Loop! bullseye bump as a super coil.

My bobbin wasn't large enough to hold the whole skein so I thread plied the leftovers. I like that one too!

Overall, I'm happy with my yarns. Look for them in upcoming posts as all of them are screaming to be knit or woven right away!

Tour de Fleece!

This is the fourth year that I'll be participating in the Tour de Fleece. This annual event has really helped to improve my spinning by leaps and bounds. Its gotten so that I associate summer with spinning now. I just love it!


I started team Newfoundland and Labrador, and I am the captain! Go me! Lol. I'm happy that spinning is really picking up in this province. We have about a dozen or so participants on our team. I'm also spinning for team Loop (my new favorite etsy store!). One of my goals is to spin through some of my Loop stash. I have 5 of her bumps in my stash and they are all bigger than 5 oz. I also want to try a few art yarn techniques.


I tried spinning some coils/beehives. They actually turned out pretty good as I was spinning them, but when they were pulled through the orifice and onto the bobbin, they sort of came apart. I followed the technique as outlined in the book Spin Art.


So I think my problem is that my orifice is too small. Schact sells a bulky flyer for the sidekick wheel with a larger orifice for the purpose of spinning bulkier art yarns. This is something I may have to invest in.


Here is a close up of some of the neater coils. This was so much fun to spin and its definitely something I'll be trying again. I think next time I will try plying it with a handspun single instead of a commercial yarn. I'm not sure that I like the contrasting colours.

Prior to the tour I finished up spinning half of my cupcake fibers sock kit. Here is the resulting skein. My first official three ply! I say first official because I have spun chain plied yarns which is technically a three ply yarn but not really considered a true three ply yarn since all three plies of the chain ply come from the one single ply. Understand? I'm not sure I do, and I'm a spinner. Lol.

I cannot get through a Tour without being inspired by the many spindle spinners over on Ravelry. I'm always amazed at what people can accomplish on such a simple tour. I had to break out my spindles and give it a whirl. Literally. Lol. Here is a photo of Spencer...looking unbelievably worried. He is such a little neurotic guy. I'd love to know what he is thinking sometime.

And the final photo is of my Loop batt that I've spun so far. I'm not sure what I'll do with this one, but right now I'm leaning towards chain plying it to preserve the colours. This one is called 'Kaleidoscope Eyes' and is a repeatable colourway. This means that lots of other people have this exact same colour. The good thing about this is, that its very easy to get inspired by project photos of this stuff knit up on Ravelry. Diane of Knitabulls podcast fame is currently knitting a gorgeous shawlette called Ruby Slippers in this colourway. I'm tempted to do the exact same thing! But who knows when and where inspiration will strike. I do know this.....all of my Loop batts that I've spun up are currently knit up. I think that says something about this fiber. It doesn't languish in the stash at all. It demands to be seen!

Its August?

I don't know what it is about summer, but its like we are in some sort of time warp. I don't know if time speeds up in the Northern hemisphere, or is it just that our summers are so darned short. In anycase, I cannot believe that its August already. Only 8 more sleeps and I'm heading to Toronto!!! Hurrah...yarn shopping anyone?

In the meantime, I finished up some more Tour de Fleece yarn. Sadly, my Tour was way less productive than in previous years. I think it was because I was suddenly unexplainably smitten with my spindle. Go figure, and I have two wheels.

Jess was in town for the month of July. It was so great to see her and talk knitter with her. I had almost forgotten our language. Lol...good thing that I have ravelry and that I went to the spinning workshop. And Jess has finished her Sylvi. I was so impressed with it that I took pictures. This is in part to show off her mad skills and to pressure myself into at least casting on for Sylvi. I've had the yarn for close to two years now. Shame.

Its Tour de Fleece Time!

Its that time of year again. July is the perfect time to spin. With so many others spinning for the tour de fleece, the ravelry boards are a constant source of inspiration. For example, the other day, I saw someone had a spindle that had as its whorl, the Wheel of Fortune!! I pm'd this person to tell her how cute I thought it was and she immediately put me onto the esty seller. So, I have a new spindle on the way!!!! Not a wheel of fortune, but one with candy butterflies, set in resin. I cannot wait to see it...and spin it too, I guess...lol.

These two pictures show my favorite skein to date. Its BFL/silk from an esty seller from Torbay, Newfoundland. The colourway is Jelly Bean Row. How cute is that? I'm very happy with how the colours lined up and I only had to do a couple of resectioning in places to make it work. I'm so tempted to immediately cast on for a pair of mittens using this yarn. Thats a good sign that I'm getting over my inability to knit with handspun, right?

This yarn is my first time spinning polwarth! Its from etsy seller Kelpiefibers and I spin this completely on my new Kundart spindle - which is a dream to spin on, by the way. I don't know why, but ever since the spinning retreat, I've been obsessed with spindle spinning - and we didn't even do a whole lot of spindle spinning there.

And finally a picture of what summer is all about! Homemade popsicles with fruit! I made these for 'the boys' but so far, I've eaten them all myself. Can you blame me?

Its Tour de Fleece Time!!

And I've been spinning up a storm.  I have no goals for the tour this year, only to spin through some stash.  Here is what I've finished to date.

I've even been spinning on my spindle that Kev made.  I'm really having a blast this tour.  No pressures. 

Tour de Fleece 2009

Its back! Hurrah! I spun a lot of fibre last summer during the tour. I'm not sure if I'll get to spin as much this summer because my parents will be visiting as of Sunday. I'm not sure they will understand the madness. Here is a picture of some of the fiber that I plan on spinning.


















My personal goal this year is to use the drum carder more. I really need to do something about the drive belt/band. The owner of the drumcarder had some kind of aquarium tubing rigged up. But since I plan on buying the carder, I need to invest in an actual band/belt since the aquarium tubing doesn't work well. I really enjoyed spinning the batts that I carded last year.

I plan on dyeing the natural corriedale different colours and use some of Deb Mentz's colour theory to blend, blend, blend.

The last tour, my goal was to spin enough for a sweater - which I did. I just haven't finished knitting the sweater. Its the violent green Leisl (pattern by Ysolda). Its almost finished, but not quite.

Oh, have I mentioned that I purchased a big dirty fleece. It should be here any day now. I will be processing it all by myself and documenting it all here. Megan (of Stitch it podcast fame) has been talking about it a lot on her podcast, and I'm totally inspired. I'll likely be looking for a good therapist by the time its all over, but its something that I want to try.

Changing Strategy

So the Tour de Fleece has ended. My original goal was to spin enough for a sweater from 'A Fine Fleece' called Gaelic Mist. I didn't come close to this. I didn't have enough roving. On the 'Tour de Fleece' blog, the organizer posted about changing strategies mid ride (or spin as the case may be). Well, I'm changing strategies at the end. I'm going to make 'Leisl' - a gorgeous sweater by Ysolda Teague. She offers many different options for this little cardigan. It can be knit cap sleeves, 3/4 sleeves or full length. It can also be a shrug or longer cardi. So my problem is solved. Since I have about 900 yards it would seem I am good. Now I just have to change the colour. I want green! Green Kool Aid is hard to come by here in Goose Bay for some strange reason. I've been adding to my green kool aid stash bit by bit. Whenever someone goes out of town, I ask them to pick me up some green Kool Aid. I hope I like this colour. This would be alot of yarn to waste.

Just keep spinning, just keep spinning

You know, like Dorie off of Finding Nemo. Well, she was swimming, but that little tune has been going through my head as spinning is all I seem to want to do in my spare time.

Here is some more proof of my productivity. I present to you 'Sour Candy' and 'Strawberry Slushie'. Why all my yarn seems to be named after food lately I don't know.




I am particularly proud of Sour Candy and this came from my first go at the drum carder. I must say as intimidating as that machine looks, it is alot of fun to work with.

I'm so tempted to give up on the natural corriedale and just start dyeing it and carding it and having fun with it. But, I did set a goal for myself. Arrrgh!

Drum Carding

Can you tell how enthusiastic I am about spinning. 5 posts this month. I blame it all on the tour.

So, I'm leasing a drumcarder from a lady who isn't sure she has a use for it anymore. She was doing some pretty funky stuff with it. She was spinning caribou hair (mixed with wool), knitting it up, then felting it. It was a giant experiment involving the Labrador craft marketers group. They ended up using a commericial felter in the end and forgoing the knitting part. Anyway the carder was a mess of caribou hair and gummy who knows what. So yesterday, I spent the better part of two hours cleaning the thing. Then, I carded my very first batt! I feel like a new mom.

Take a look!

Pretty filthy pre cleaning eh? I now have it on my kitchen table and there it will stay since Kev is out of town for at least a couple of weeks. I've had this carder in my possession since April and only now am using it. I really didn't want a big dirty drum carder on my kitchen table. Kev would not be amused.