For this year’s Tour de Fleece, I’m pretty much goin’ it alone – my own personal challenge. Tourdefleece.com is not active for this year’s challenge and I decided not to do the Ravelry version after not enjoying it last year… and I’m havin’ fun.

On July 3, I bought some Schacht hand cards – 72 ppi…

I did dye some merino fiber, but after impatiently waiting for it to dry, I decided to pull some fiber that I’d previously dyed and card it with some natural color merino – total of 4 oz. I really enjoyed blending the fiber with my new fiber tools and made my first rolags.

This was a good opportunity to work on my long draw.

I heard a tip in episode 4 of the SpinDoctor podcast that helped tremendously – so I’m working to draw back at the same speed the twist enters the fiber. This is very challenging. One moment it’s working then the next moment I lose it. I know fiber preparation has a lot to do with the success of this technique so I figure that better I get at the fiber prep, the better I’ll get at the long draw.

I’m planning on chain-plying once I finish the singles. I can’t wait to see how it looks!