Tour de Fleece, days 11-20

I feel like the Tour has just zipped by me this year!  I've been spinning on my Tomato Salad singles every chance I've gotten, but the progress has been slow.  The good news is, the second bump of singles are DONE!

I'm a bit concerned about the difference in colour between the first and second bumps of fibre.  The first one spun up pretty much as expected, close to the previously spun yarn I fell in love with in the first place.  The second bump, while still very pretty, had a lot more undyed/white fibre in it, which made the colours much more muted and leaning towards pastel.  Hopefully they will still look good together when all knit up.

Pardon the blur!

Tour de Fleece, days 6-10

One of the first years I was really active on Ravelry and participated in the Tour de Fleece, someone spun up the most amazingly beautiful yarn and posted it in the daily finish line threads.  I was smitten from the first moment I laid eyes on it and had to hunt down the dyer and pick up a few braids.  I knew right away what I wanted it to be, I just needed to spin it.

*cue crickets*

Three more Tours passed and it still sat there, patiently waiting, in the storage bin.  It was starting to give me sad eyes by the time the Tour started this year, and I can't say I blame it.

The good news is that I still love the colours on this one as much as I did 4 years ago, and I still love the sweater pattern I'd originally had in mind (Goodale, for those of you on Ravelry).  The spinning itself is taking a while, but I'm enjoying it.  The first bobbin of singles is spun, and the second one will be started after the day of rest.

FatCatKnits Tomato Salad on Falkland wool.  This will be chain-plied to preserve the colour progression and will make a warm, sturdy, striped sweater for this fall.

The orange gets me every time.

Tour de Fleece, days 4-5

After years and years and years of drooling over Hello Yarn's incredible club fibres, and almost as many years of missed shop updates (they are infrequent and go FAST), her fibre club wait list finally opened up for new members about a year ago.  In a whirlwind flurry of adrenaline and fast-typing fingers, the wait list filled back up in mere minutes, leaving those of us lucky enough to have made it in doing the happy dance and waiting for the news someday to come that we were moving from the wait list to being Actual Members.  My ninja typing skills (there are up sides to being an office worker!) meant I only had to wait about three more months before I got to experience my first of Adrian's amazing club offerings.

That was back in November, and I'd yet to spin a single one.  They've all been sitting there, neatly wrapped up and nestled together in a bin in the living room.  Too pretty to spin, I didn't want to mess them up!

Well, that's just silly, I told myself, the Tour is a time for trying new things, stretching my wings.  I grabbed the nearest HY bag and decided it wanted to be singles, for something lacy, perhaps a shawlette.  Romney is one of my very favourite yarns to spin for singles.  It holds up beautifully, floofs when finished, requires very little twist, and spins up quickly.  So quickly and beautifully that I had to go back and order an extra, so expect to see more of this yarn soon.  ;) 

4 oz of Hello Yarn Tideline (the March 2014 club offering), spun up at about 292 yards of fingering weight singles. 

Aren't these colours just to die for?  She nailed Tideline perfectly.

Just hanging out in a tree.  ;)

Tour de Fleece, Day 3

Day 3, plying!  I love plying bulky yarns, they just fly through my fingers.  The black corriedale ended up being about 94 yards, which should be plenty for the contrast on my Iced.  I picked up some cute little grey speckled buttons at JoAnn's so as soon as I have some free knitting time, I can finally finish it!  Given the 85 degree, sunshine-y weather Seattle has been having, though, I'm not in much of a rush to pick up a huge wool sweater to work on.

The colour in this pic is far too grey (still getting used to the new camera!), but shows the size well.

Much closer to real life colour!

Tour de Fleece, days 1-2

The Tour de Fleece started on Saturday, right in the midst of a jam-packed flurry of a weekend, chock full of puppies, house projects, fireworks, movies, and way too much good food.  My spinning time was a bit limited, but I got about 3 ounces spun each of the first two days, and am looking forward to plying later tonight.

I started an Iced, oh, let's see.....Ugh.  Ravelry says January 9, 2011. This should have been an instant gratification project, made of bulky yarn on big ol' needles.  But, while I spun up the main colour all at once, I never did get around to spinning up the contrast colour for the neck band.  So, after languishing in the WIP basked for over 3 years, I picked up some plain black Corriedale during a moving sale at my LYS.

My hope with the Tour this year is to pick up some of my long-neglected fibres to spin, and to spin the odds and ends needed to finish sweaters.  I have 2 others that are just-shy of having enough yarn to finish, and none of them needs to take up space in my project room, when they could be taking up space in my closet instead.  ;)

(As it turns out, taking pictures of black yarn isn't all that exciting, and my camera wasn't wanting to focus well.  Oops.)