I finished my yarn on the last day of the tour! (It was very much a coincidence ’cause I didn’t know when the end of tour was – I just wanted to spin!)

I ended up with a very nice squishy yarn. Non-superwash merino. I am a little disappointed that the blue dye bled in the finishing wash, coloring the natural end of the of the yarn, but I’ll get over it. I suppose it was inevitable but still a little bit of a bummer.

This is the first yarn that I kinda designed. I think that’s cool. I call it ‘Gradient Blues’. There’s one thing that I know for sure – it’s gonna be used for something for me.

I think the photos speak for themselves so enjoy!

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!

I finished my fingerless mittens!

I call them ‘Elemental Mitts’ (aka Ele-Mitts). (A woman from my knitting group came up with that and said I could use it! )

They are mine, all mine and I love them! My first completed project using my own handspun!

I still have some yarn left to make something matchy-matchy so stay tuned for that. I’m still deciding what to make.

ttfn!

I took a small break from spinning for a few weeks but with the coming of Tour de Fleece and inspiration from The Hyper Monkey, I decided to start ‘training’ and finally sat down at my wheel to finish my current project.

This was spun from The Painted Tiger’s ‘CMY Party Mix’.

I just wanted a basic barberpole yarn, which worked most of the way except for a couple of sections of green & orange that are more solid.

I call it ‘Rainbow Pastel’. I think I like it!

I recently saw a rainbow arching across the sky. It was after a rainstorm – the sun came out and as I was driving home, I looked to my left and there was a rainbow… almost a full rainbow. Inspired, I went home and started spinning this – 4 oz Superwash Merino dyed by The Painted Tiger.

My goal was the split the top in half and spin so the colors matched up.

Well… that didn’t work out as planned, which is why I ended up with two skeins.

Nonetheless, I like it.

I haven’t bought a lot of spinning fiber this year ’cause I currently have plenty of stash to keep me busy.

Dyed by Spincerely, superwash Merino in the colorway “Stained Berry”.

I call it ‘Berry Berry Nice’.