Tour de Fleece, day 20

In the spirit of full disclosure, I really started the plying after dinner on day 19 in a fit of optimism and total understatement of how very much singles were crammed on those two bobbins.  Sure, I'll finish that tonight!  Famous last words.  :P  I'd made it through 3 of the 5 colours in the progression before I was falling asleep at the wheel and decided it might be best to finish up today.

I had planned from the beginning to not try to line up the colours in the progression while I was plying, as I wanted there to be some overlap and blending.  It was really interesting watching the changes as I plied. The blues (first colour up) matched up almost perfectly.  The light green was slightly longer on one bobbin, and then things got completely muddled about halfway through the dark green.  It appears that my first set of singles wasn't consistent in size and got a bit bigger as the bobbin emptied, so the second set of singles, which I'd matched to the size of the end of the first bobbin ended up having quite a bit more yardage.  This is a good argument right here for not letting a project languish for a year between spinning sets of singles.  :(  Probably also a good argument for starting to keep a spinning log and a sample piece to spin to, which is something I keep meaning to do.....

Anyway, by about halfway through the dark green on my thinner singles, I was already on the brown on the thicker ones.  I had a wee bit of overlap where both singles were on brown at the same time, then the first bobbin ran out and I had to start improvising.  Without breaking the one single that was attached to the plied yarn, I wound the remainder off into an Andean plying bracelet (this is a wee bit awkward while still attached to the wheel, but it is doable if you're pigheaded patient enough), spit spliced the end of the first single to the end of the second, then finished plying from the bracelet.  Voila!  One continuous skein, no knots required.  Since I hadn't yet gotten through the last of the brown and into the orange, it actually transitioned quite smoothly and still gave me a good section of pure orange to end the skein.   It is intended for a shawl, probably top down, to showcase the colour progression.  Final yardage count is 600, at about sport weight, so it should be a good sized, snuggly warm shawl. 

Apple Cider Quick Bread

Every so often, I'll stumble upon a recipe that is so easy it seems like you are cheating somehow.  The original version of this recipe was one of them.  It came from a cookbook of pre-made mix recipes and I used to make up batches of the mix to give away at Christmas.  I've modified it to make it gluten free and slightly lower in fat, but it is still just as good!  5 minutes to mix, an hour in the oven, and only 4 ingredients - how can you go wrong?

Apple Cider Quick Bread

 (makes 1 loaf)

3 C self-rising gluten free flour (I used Bob's Red Mill Biscuit and Baking Mix)
3 T sugar
12 oz bottle apple hard cider (mine was homemade, I think any of them should work)
4 T butter melted (this is about half what the original called for!)

Mix the first 3 ingredients together until all the flour is wet and there are no big lumps (a few smaller ones should be okay).  Put batter in a standard-sized loaf pan and pour 1/3 of the melted butter over the top of the loaf.  Bake at 375 degrees for 40 minutes, pour another 1/3 of the butter over the top, bake 10 more minutes, pour on the remaining 1/3 butter, then bake for 10 more minutes.  Let it rest as long as you can stand it (I usually make it 10 minutes, maybe 15 - it makes the house smell heavenly!), then remove from the pan and slice carefully.  Once the bread has cooled, it slices like a champ, but you do have to be careful with it when it is still fresh from the oven.  This one keeps remarkably well for a gluten-free bread, even when not refrigerated.  We had some of the leftovers grilled in a wee bit of butter on the griddle a few days later, topped with sliced turkey and shredded cheddar, like an open faced sandwich.  Yum!

Tour de Fleece, days 10-19

Day 10 was one of the 2 days of rest on the tour, so I suppose this is really only days 11-19.  I'm super happy the rest days both fall on Mondays, since I go straight from work to rehearsal and am usually so pooped by the time I get home there would be no oomph left to spin.

I needed to find my other huge bobbin before I could start the next 8 oz of A Bug's Life, so I thought it would be fun to do a fast and easy spin.  The only problem was that I couldn't decide what fibre to use, so I had someone else pick for me.  Problem solved!  Well, except for the minor detail that I'd already decided what this fibre wanted to be a long time ago and it was already split and ready to go and....it was going to be thin.  Very thin.  My first true 3-ply, and I wanted it to be for socks.  Fun spin, yes!  Easy spin, yes!  Fast?  Not so much so.  They are going to be the most awesome socks ever, though, so I'm just not going to complain about it.  :)

This fibre is a long-marinated resident of my stash, a Spunky Eclectic fibre club offering from October 2009 - Ribbons, on a wool blend.  The wool has a slight crispness to it and an easy-to-manage staple length.  I think the socks should hold up well, without being quite as rough as a Romney or other longwool.  I split the fibre lengthwise into 3 pieces: the first was spun as is, the second was split in half again lengthwise, and the third was split into thirds lengthwise, so I should get nice shorter stripes, as well as longer colour changes.  I've only ever done a true 3-ply (not chained) once, in a plying workshop, so I'm looking forward to getting a few hours soon to ply!

Aren't they pretty?

In the spirit of cleaning off some some bobbins, I also wound off Carried Away.  I got roughly 775 yards of fingering weight singles (well, fingering weight pre-bath, but I imagine it won't puff up too much).   I am mostly decided on this pattern, just as soon as the knitting bug takes over again. 

Tour de Fleece, days 8-9

I fell down the rabbit hole that is Ravelry's new handspun/spinning feature this morning and realized a few key things:

1)  I have way too much unspun fibre.  Somehow I haven't gotten the wheel out as much over the past year as I should and it makes me really sad.  It is such a peaceful, calming activity for me, and this was a year that could have used a bit of extra peace.

2) I am a fairly lackadaisical spinner, in that I don't think I've ever measured twist angle or grist.  I'm hard pressed to measure WIP most of the time, I just eyeball it and go.  It might be time to try spinning for a specific sweater, rather than spinning the yarn and THEN deciding what it wants to be.

3)  The yarn from yesterday's post?  I started that at the end of the Tour last year.  Oi.

On the up side, progress has been made!  I pulled out another long-languishing sweater lot and started up on the second 4 oz bump of singles (the first 4 oz was spun in January-ish).  This one is called A Bug's Life and is another Spunky Eclectic fibre club offering from July 2012. The fibre is Portugese Merino and is a pretty low-key one to spin.  It isn't as slippery to me as some of the other Merino I've spun, and isn't quite as squishy.  My hopes are that these traits will make it hold up a bit better and not pill so much from wear.  My one existing handspun Merino sweater, while I love it dearly, is very felted in the underarms and starting to pill.

I loved the colours in this one so much I ordered 2 extra bumps for a total of 16 oz, which should be enough for a cardigan.  Long or short sleeves remains to be seen.  :)  The first half the singles fits nicely on the largest bobbin I own:

Tour de Fleece, day 7

It is so rare during the Tour that I get a whole day to spin, and this was one of maybe two that I'll get.  July is such a busy month, I always feel like there isn't enough of me to go around.  Car shows, races, dance festivals, gardening, it all needs attention.  So when I do get a long day stretching ahead of me to just enjoy a project, I relish every second of it.  I parked myself on the couch for the better part of the afternoon (about 1 Miss Marple and 4 Poirot episodes, if I remember correctly), drank iced tea like it was going out of style, and treadled like a mad fiend.  This was the second 4 oz bump of David's Gift on Superwash Corriedale, my Spunky Eclectic fibre club from December 2010.  I spun up the first bump about this time last year and there it has sat, looking sad and neglected.  This was originally intended to be a shawl, and I'll probably stick to that game plan if the yardage looks promising.  I think this will be sport weight when plied and is a really lovely progression starting with orange and passing through brown, olive, sage, and finally turquoise.  After the second set of singles have rested a bit (the first set it fairly dead and I'd rather not ply it with a super lively, fresh bunch of singles), I'll have a plying marathon.  The progression on both bumps was similar, but I expect and am hoping for a certain amount of barberpoling on the colour changes.  This was my first time spinning SW Corrie and it was one of the easiest spins I've had outside very long wools.  The only other SW I've spun was slippery and hard to control, but this still had a lovely crimp to it.  Not bad for a day's work!

Tour de Fleece, days 4-6

Look familiar?  I finally wrapped up Carried Away in a rare bit of quiet early morning time on the 4th. The rest of the house was peacefully napping the day away, but my brain wouldn't shut off, so I thought a bit of meditative spinning time with a cup or five of coffee would help.  I'm not sure it quieted down all the noise in my head, but it certainly made a huge dent in my spinning.  :) 

I haven't measured this one yet, as it needed a bit of a rest before winding off, so I'm still  not sure whether it will be a stole or a scarf, but I'm completely smitten with the weird colour combination!

Tour de Fleece, days 1-3

Every year, a group of mad spinners 'round the world participates in the Tour de Fleece, a yarn spinning extravaganza that runs the length of the Tour de France.  This is my..third?...no, fourth, year participating, and I'm off to a bit of a slow start.  Between the car show, the Murder Mystery party, dance rehearsal, and work, the sum total of my spinning thus far is about 2 ounces.  But, hey, that's 2 ounces more than I had spun Saturday morning, right?  :)

(Awful cell phone shot.  It looked much better on the phone, trust me!)

Southern Cross/Hello Yarn collaboration: Carried Away, on Polwarth.  SCF club fibre that's been marinating in my stash since February 2011.  Oops.  This one's intended to be left as fingering weight, fluffy singles, to be used for a scarf or stole, depending on the yardage I get.