During Le Tour de Fleece 2009, I spun a total of 11.5 ounces, completed three skeins of hand spun (plus one sample) and improved my skill on Navajo-plying (chain-plying). My goals evolved during the tour and working on chain-plying became my focus.

To start things off, here’s the mini-skein I spun during the tour… I forget which night…from a batt sample from Spincerely:

On Friday, July 24th, I tried to start my day spinning. I’d finished these singles the night before:

And I wanted to start plying. But a few minutes into it, I became frustrated because I wasn’t liking the results so I stopped. I knew I was practicing the definition of insanity – doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Also, there was just a feeling impatience, which is not good when trying to learn something. And little did I know, this was the beginning of a very bad Friday that ended with a headache.

On Saturday, July 25th, I went to my local yarn store to knit and pick up some yarn that they had custom ordered for me – some Blue Sky Alpaca’s Skinny Dyed organic cotton, DK weight, in a lovely pale pink (color# 305)… but more about that yarn in another post. The rest of the day I was a little under the weather and didn’t spin, so that became my rest day since I did not rest on Monday.

Finally on Sunday, July 26th, I got back to the spinning wheel after deciding to let go of the frustration and had one of those moments that are special when you’re self-taught – where something clicks, for whatever reason. In this case, I was fixing a broken single, trying the splice in the end and I had to switch my hand positions and things started to work. Among other things, I got better tension and I was liking how the twist was looking.

The finished yarn definitely is not perfect, but it’s better.

Never stop learning.

I finished spinning the Lame Duck Mallard colorway.

While I didn’t fall in love with the yarn I created, I was very pleased with the progress I made on chain-plying. I’d previously been underplying my singles (and the plies) so I worked to add more twist, even going so far as to add too much twist in places. Hopefully, at some point, I’ll find a balance. It’s hard for me to tell if I have enough twist. So I’m trying to add more twist than I think I need. Being a solitary spinner, it’s more of a challenge to figure this out.

Now I’m spinning this:

Dyed by Spincerely – Superwash Merino in the colorway, Delilah.

I’m spinning it fine so it’s going a little slower, but I’m enjoying it. I love spinning Merino. I started out with a couple pf pre-drafted sections, but I lost the color variations so now I’m spinning directly from the top.

I also finished my socks this week! Stay tuned for pictures! Hope you enjoy your week!

First off all… what was in the box? My very own Majacraft Rose!! Whoo Hoo!!!! I haven’t had a chance to take some really good photos of it but here’s a peek:

I feel I made very good investment with this purchase.

See that little bit of pink in the lower left corner? It’s what I worked on first for Tour de Fleece. It was a work-in-progress that I had on my spindle for a while. I had totally over pre-drafted it but I wanted to finished it.

It was hand dyed by Spincerely, one of my favorite indie dyers, in the colorway ‘Goldflame Honeysuckle.’

I’m am very happy with the final results. I call it ‘Flower Petals’.

Started: 07-04-09 (as WIP)
Completed: 07-07-09

Weight: 3 ounces
Length: 208.3 yards

I LOVE it! I think it’s enough to follow through with my original thought to use it for a Morning Surf scarf. (If I can’t stop staring at the yarn, that is. )

Now I’m working on this:

It’s from the Spunky Eclectic Fiber club in the Colorway ‘Lame Duck Mallard’ – Superwash BFL. Not one of my favorite colorways so it’s perfect to practice chain-plying. I’m going to spin 2 ounces and then ply those singles and trying to figure out why I have such trouble. I’m enjoying spinning the singles – I’ve never spun BFL before and I’m like it.

In other news, my socks…

…I only have to do the cuffs and they will be done! Yay!

Fiber is so much fun, isn’t it?

Take a bit of ‘Hot. Hot! HOT!!!’

and some ‘Strawberry Lemonade’

Spin them up…

and you get ‘Orange Twist’

4.3 ounces / 683 yards (if my calculations are correct)

I was up late spinning this last night because I had to clean off the bobbins to return the wheel today in exchange for this: