tdf2010

- saffronknits 5 Comments

tour de fleece 2010 – finis!

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! :)

- saffronknits 3 Comments

tour de fleece 2010 – week one

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! :D

- saffronknits 3 Comments

fiber friday: rainbow pastel

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! :)