Fiber Arts Friday: Tour de Fleece, 2025 - part 5

For Part 4 - - I lost a bit of focusing on the fun over the task last week.  So now that I've reached my weight goal for the one skein I've started, I want to continue to practice on just having fun.

TdF Stage 20 - Friday, July 25

Tibetan Mastiff:

• Time Spent:  39 minutes
• How I felt:  I was able to spend a little more time last night and a few different times today.  I'm about half-complete with the plying.  So I'm feeling confident that I will have enough time to let it dry before it needs to be dropped off.  This makes me happy.

TdF Stage 21, TdFF Stage 1 - Saturday, July 26 - TdFF begins

Tibetan Mastiff:

• Time Spent:  48 minutes
• How I felt:  I got a little more done after yesterday's post and was able to complete plying today over 3 different stints.  Yay!

• 156 total yards of 2-ply.  It's taking a bath now.

TdF Stage 22, TdFF Stage 2 - Sunday, July 27 - TdF ends

Tibetan Mastiff:

• Time Spent:  32 minutes
• How I felt:  It's always fun starting a new skein.

TdFF Stage 3 - Monday, July 28

No spinning today

TdFF Stage 4 - Tuesday, July 29

Tibetan Mastiff:

• Time Spent:  22 minutes
• How I felt: After not spinning yesterday, it felt nice to spin today.

I did get my County Fair Entries delivered today, include my finished skein from earlier this week.  I'm happy with how it turned out.

TdFF Stage 5 - Wednesday, July 30

Tibetan Mastiff:

• Time Spent: 24 minutes
• How I felt:  I was able to spend much of today watching the County Fair Judging.  This has been on my ToDo List for quite some time and today was the first time I was able to make it happen.  I learned a lot.

TdFF Stage 6 - Thursday, July 31

Tibetan Mastiff:

• Time Spent: 14 minutes
• How I felt: It was fun to just spin this afternoon.

Weekly Wrap-up:

• Days Spent: 17of18 +6of7 = 23of25 days thus far
• Time Spent: 420 minutes (7hrs) + 210 minutes (3 1/2 hours) = 630 minutes (10 1/2 hours) thus far
• Overall Feeling:  I wasn't sure how to divide my work for the two days overlap between the Men's and Women's Races, so I am treating each day as one day, in and of itself.

Happy Fiber Arts Friday!

Fiber Arts Friday: Tour de Fleece, 2025 - part 4

For Part 4 - - My goal this week is to just spin and not worry about how much I've spun, even though the Fair Entry Deadline is Wednesday.

TdF Stage 13 - Friday, July 18

Tibetan Mastiff:

• Time Spent: 31 minutes
• How I felt:  I began today thinking it would be quiet and relaxed with a little bit of dog grooming and a good amount of spinning chiengora.  Well, I did do some dog grooming, but a lot of other good things happened which allowed for only about a half-hour of spinning.

TdF Stage 14 - Saturday, July 19

Tibetan Mastiff:

• Time Spent: 28 minutes
• How I felt:  I completed the County Fair Registrations this morning and realized that the Chiengora entry only has to be 1 ounce instead of 2 ounces.  I am fairly confident that I have already spun 1 ounce, so I am now less worried about this entry.  I will continue to spin thru Wednesday, as planned.

TdF Stage 15 - Sunday, July 20 - Challenge Day

Tibetan Mastiff:

• Time Spent: 5 minutes
• How I felt:  Challenge Day?  I literally only spent 5 minutes spinning today. lol.

TdF - Monday, July 21 - Rest Day

Tibetan Mastiff:

• Time Spent: 22 minutes
• How I felt:  While today is officially a rest day, I took some time to give my brain a break in between studying other things.

TdF Stage 16 - Tuesday, July 22

Tibetan Mastiff:

• Time Spent:  26 minutes
• How I felt:  I spun a bit more after yesterday's posting.  Today I took some time to spin after a too long web meeting.  It's feels nice to take the time for a mental break.  I need to remember this feeling.

TdF Stage 18 - Wednesday, July 23

Tibetan Mastiff:

• Time Spent: 20 minutes
• How I felt:  I spun a bit more after yesterday's posting and today was the last day of spinning singles on this skein...  I didn't get to it until the end of the day.

Today is the Fair Entry Deadline.  I did enter this skein, as mentioned over the weekend... but today, is also my moment of truth.... Have I spun enough?

Yes, just barely... 2 1/4 oz.  yay!

TdF Stage 19 - Thursday, July 24

Tibetan Mastiff:

• Time Spent: 13 minutes
• How I felt:  I began plying today.

Weekly Wrap-up:

• Days Spent: 10of12 + 7of6 = 17of18 days thus far
• Time Spent: 230 minutes (3 hrs 50 minutes) + 190 minutes (3hrs 10 mins) = 420 minutes (7hrs) thus far
• Overall Feeling:  I have started to slip in to "task reporting" and not really reporting on how I'm feeling... will try to be better.  Tho I am happy that I met my unofficial goal of 2 ounces.

Happy Fiber Arts Friday!

Fiber Arts Friday: Tour de Fleece, 2025 - part 3

For Part 3 - - My goal this week is to continue to spin for the Joy of it.

TdF Stage 7 - Friday, July 11

No Spinning today.

Having tweaked my back last Thursday morning, I decided to let it rest one more day.

TdF Stage 8 - Saturday, July 12

Tibetan Mastiff:

• Time Spent: 14 minutes
• How I felt:  I was feeling significantly better this morning.  Spinning makes me happy.

TdF Stage 9 - Sunday, July 13

No Spinning today.

TdF Stage 10 - Monday, July 14 - Challenge Day

Tibetan Mastiff:

• Time Spent: 10 minutes
• How I felt: My brain and day was full.  I have one more major thing to get done today, but decided to spin for about 10 minutes to give my brain a rest...  So today, my challenge was just to spin.  :-)

TdF  - Tuesday, July 15 - Rest Day

Tibetan Mastiff: 

• Time Spent: 18 minutes
• How I felt:  While today was supposed to be a Rest Day, it was nice have a break in the middle of the day that allowed for a bit of spinning.

TdF Stage 11 - Wednesday, July 16

Tibetan Mastiff:

• Time Spent: 27 minutes
• How I felt:  After several extremely full days, today was more relaxed and I was able to spin some over the afternoon.  Feels nice.

TdF Stage 12 - Thursday, July 17

Tibetan Mastiff:

• Time Spent: 24 minutes
• How I felt:  It was nice to spin while listening to the news and not feel rushed for other things that must be done today.

Weekly Wrap-up:

• Days Spent:  5 of 6 days + 5 of 6 days = 10 of 12 days thus far
• Time Spent: 137 minutes (2:17) + 93 minutes (1:33) = 3 hrs 50 minutes thus far
• Overall Feeling:  I have started to wonder how much I’ve spun…. and since I didn’t weigh the prepared fiber, nor have I weighed the bobbin I’m using, nor have I kept track of how many balls of roving I’ve completed, I really don’t know. Apparently I took myself seriously when I embarked upon this year being about fun and not task completion.  This is good for me.  But it also means that my type-A self is starting to get itchy about the county fair deadline and the fact that each skein must be at least 2 ounces in order to be entered. sigh.

Happy Fiber Arts Friday!

Fiber Arts Friday: Tour de Fleece, 2025 - part 2

For Part 2 - - My goal this week is to spin for the Joy of it.... let's see how it goes.

TdF Stage 1 - Saturday, July 5

Tibetan Mastiff:

• Time Spent: 32 minutes
• How I felt: I almost forgot that today is Saturday and the beginning of the TdF, but I am feeling happy and hopeful after yesterday's Independence Day Parade.  The support for the Dems was significantly more than the others.

TdF Stage 2 - Sunday, July 6

Tibetan Mastiff:

• Time Spent: 21 minutes
• How I felt: I felt distracted today with too many things to do this morning.

TdF Stage 3 - Monday, July 7

Tibetan Mastiff:

• Time Spent: 16 minutes
• How I felt: I was feeling anxious, with a lot of things on my To Do List for today, but I decided to spin anyway... and to spin until my mind calmed down.  It fought me, but we did get there... it took about 15 minutes.

TdF Stage 4 - Tuesday, July 8

Tibetan Mastiff:

• Time Spent: 54 minutes
• How I felt: Theoretically, my Internet has been fixed…. I did get some spinning done since I could not accomplish any internet-y things while the Tech was working on our service.  It was nice to spin, knowing there wasn’t anything else I should be doing.   Also, my bobbin is fully covered now, which always makes me happy.

TdF Stage 5 - Wednesday, July 9

Tibetan Mastiff:

• Time Spent:  14 minutes
• How I felt:  What a day.  It feels like there's been a sea change and the day has been full because of it.  I didn't get to spinning until about 8:30pm.

TdF Stage 6 - Thursday, July 10

No Spinning today.

I tweaked my back in the morning and followed it up with far too many meetings that required me to sit for most of the day.  Which meant that by the end of the day, my back was far too tight to treadle my wheel.  sigh.

Hopefully I'm feeling better tomorrow. 

Weekly Wrap-up:

• Days Spent:  5 of 6 days
• Time Spent: 137 minutes (2 hrs 17 minutes)
• Overall Feeling:  I'm having fun and while I didn't spin yesterday, I've decided it doesn't really matter.

Happy Fiber Arts Friday!

Fiber Arts Friday: Tour de Fleece, 2025

I started thinking about my upcoming Tour de Fleece plans since March.  At that time I wanted to spin for my long-term chiengora project, but realized I had no fiber ready for spinning.  *sigh*

I want this year's TdF to be more about playing and mental rest than accomplishing a daily task that needs to be squeezed in between other work... aka this Type A personality has learned that sometimes the "fun" things should be just about having fun... and for me, spinning has been more about work than fun over the last few years.

So my goals for this year are to spin every day... but only for the joy of spinning.  I may track time spent, but I don't intend to have any specific time-spent goals or number of skeins completed goals... We'll see how that goes.  ;-)

Fortunately I have been able to spend some time over the last couple of weeks to prepare a few batts of Tibetan Mastiff for spinning... so at least I can get started.  :-)

Per usual, I am spinning with the Chiengora Group.

Tour de Fleece (TdF): This year, the Tour de France starts on
Saturday, July 05, 2025 and runs until Sunday, July 27, 2025

Tour de Fleece Femmes (TdFF): We will also spin along with the Tour’s women’s race, Tour de France Femmes, which start on Saturday, July 26, 2025 and runs until Sunday, August 8, 2025

• Spinning Days: TdF Saturday, July 05 through Sunday, July 27. TdFF Saturday, July 26 through Sunday, August 8.

• Rest Days: Tuesday, July 15 and Monday, July 21.

• Challenge Days: Spin something challenging on the challenge days (or pick your own Challenge Day to suit your needs and schedule). TdF: The first one is Stage 10, on Monday, July 14. The second is Stage 15, on Sunday, July 20. TdFF: Saturday, July 21.

It is nice to see the TdFF being a longer race this year.... 14 days, instead of 8.

Happy Fiber Arts Friday!  The game starts tomorrow.

Fiber Arts Friday: Estes Park Wool Market, 2025

In February 2025, soon after the schedule came out, I signed up for two classes for this year's Estes Park Wool Market.

Thursday was Blending Board Primer - this is my fourth class with Clemes and Clemes and was focused on making rolags.

Friday was Spin Goldilocks with Maggie Casey.  This class was focused on medium wools, which are some of my favorite.  I also want to soak up as much of Maggie Casey's knowledge as I can while she's still teaching.  :-)

So ultimately the weekend was focused on Woolen style prep and spinning techniques.

I got the long-draw working a little bit.  Spinning from the rolag felt weird at first, but I think I have a much better understanding between the Worsted and Woolen techniques now.

I also found it nice that we were in the Government and Spanish Language Classrooms of the High School.

I had a schedule conflict for the remainder of the weekend, so I spent some time at the Friday open market for students... I was kind of looking for a yarn suitable for a project I am pondering.  I didn't find anything that grabbed me.  Which is unusual.

I guess, the more I have the skills to make what I want, the less I'm interested in purchasing it.  But in this case, I'm not quite sure what I want yet, other than fine gauge and a moody color.

Happy Fiber Arts Friday!

Fiber Arts Friday: Cozy Stripes Sweater, part 10

We're getting close to the home stretch for this project.... As of the last post, only 2 arms, sewing on buttons, weaving in ends, and repairing two dropped stitches is ALL that remains.  Ha.  :-)

At the beginning of this section, I have 3 full brown skeins available for the arms and 14g of Skein #7 that I will reserve for button sewing.

AND.... we've reached the warm part of the year.  Progress on this project has slowed way down.

Since it will be 100F today, I think the responsible thing to do is to recognize that very little work will be completed on this project over the next few months.  Which means it is essentially in Time Out and I will be focusing on much smaller projects such as socks for the near term.

As of this writing, I am about half-complete with the first arm.

Skein duration:

• #1 (11/2/24 - 12/10/24) 5wks 3days
• #2 (12/10/24 - 12/30/24) 2wks 6days
• #3 (12/30/24 - 1/6/25) 1 week
• #4 (1/6/25 - 1/18/25) 1wk 5days
• #5 (1/18/25 - 2/5/25) - 2wks 4days - 14 g remain

• Green (2/5/25 - 2/6/25) - 2days - 22 g remain (begin body stripes)
• Orange (2/6/25 - 2/8/25) - 3days - 23g remain
• #5 (2/8/25 - 2/9/25) - 2days - 11 g remain
• Orange (2/9/25) - 1day - 18 g remain
• Green (2/10/25 - 2/14/25) - 5days - 17 g remain (complete body stripes)

• #5 (2/14/25 - 2/20/25) - 6days (begin hem)
• #6 (2/20/25 - 2/25/25) - 5days - 20g remain (complete hem, bind off pending)

• TINK Body Hem (2/27/25 - 3/6/25)  - 8days
• #5 (3/6/25 - 3/22/25) - 2 wks 2 days (begin re-Knitting Body Hem with smaller needles, US3)
• #6 (3/22/25 - 3/23/25) - 2 days (complete and bind-off Body Hem) - 19g remain

• Pickup Collar/Button Band Stitches (3/24/25 - 3/30/25) - 6days
• #6 (3/30/25 - 4/10/25) - 11days (begin Button Band/Collar, US3)
• #7 (4/10/25 - 4/22/25) - 12days (complete Button Band/Collar and Bind off) - 14g remain

• #8 (4/23/25 - 6/4/25) - 6wks (begin Arm #1, on hold for the summer) - 10g remain

Happy Fiber Arts Friday!