Fiber Arts Friday: Tour de Fleece 2012, part 1

Normally I make a list of goals for the Tour de Fleece.  But there's a lot going on, even if I'm not travelling this time.  So my goal for this year's Tour de Fleece is only to spin every day the tour races. That means if I spin only a 1/2- inch, I'm good.  The tour runs from last Saturday, June 30 thru Sunday, July 22.

As per usual, my daily progress is below.  However, this year I am starting in the middle.

I had already started spinning a Corriedale roving from a local sheep farm.  So it's not fair to take credit for this during the Tour de Fleece... 1 3/8 ounces of roving has already been spun as shown here...

2 1/2  ounces remain.  Beginning below.  :-)

Saturday, June 30
My tension was a bit wonky there on the left, but I got things back under control quickly. ;-)

Sunday, July 1
I started pre-drafting the roving today which I think helped me to spin faster, but I think also resulted in a thinner yarn.  Regardless, I was able to finish the nearly 4 ounce ball of Corriedale this morning.  :-)

This afternoon I wound off the bobbin onto my niddy noddy, counting the wraps (105).  Moved the yarn to my swift, then wound half back to the niddy noddy (52 1/2 wraps).

Then wound both into cakes.

The one on the left looks smaller and in fact weighs a lot less... 1 3/4 ounces vs. 2 1/8 ounces.  But I only ended up with about 5 inches of extra yarn from the larger cake.  As I mentioned, I thought I was spinning a thinner yarn toward the end.  Clearly, I was.

Somehow the bobbin is always more full as a 2-ply than it is as a single.  :-)

I love the final yarn!

101 yards of Maplecroft Woolworks Corriedale - Medium Grey
Boulder, Colorado
3 7/8 ounces
~ 10 wpi (wraps per inch).  Pretty close to what I was going for. Yay!

This may count as my most productive two days of spinning, ever.

Monday, July 2
On to alpaca today.  :-)

I picked this Grade 1 Alpaca up at the Estes Park Wool Market last month.  It's from Gentle Spirit Alpaca Farm in Wiggins.  Which is a couple of hours east of us.  I'm happy to note they that they used a mill in Palisade, near Grand Junction and home to some of the most amazing peaches.  So this roving is completely Colorado made.  That makes me pretty happy.  :-)

This feels very slippery... especially after spinning Corriedale.  So I'm taking it slow for now and am going for a thin single.

I only had about 10 minutes for spinning this morning, but I spun more than a 1/2 inch.  So it counts. ;-)

Tuesday, July 3
Due to tomorrow's holiday my normal Tuesday evening activity was cancelled, so I had about 45 minutes available for spinning. :-)

By the way, I completely love this photo.  The lighting is perfect.  :-)

Wednesday, July 4 - Independence Day
Thanks to today being a holiday and therefore a day off from my day job, I had several little pockets of time for spinning.  :-)

Thursday, July 5
About 10 minutes before work started plus about an hour after the day was finished meant I was able to complete spinning the 2 ounces of Grade 1 Alpaca.

You can see how energized this single is.

The yarn had a good soak and wringing.  I hung it out on the clothesline to dry, but then this happened...

A good soaking rain.  Thank you to everyone who has been sending thoughts of rain our way.  They say our Monsoon has now started.  I sure hope they're right.  :-)

I got the yarn inside right before the rain started, but it's still drying.  So I'll get a finished photo out another time.

143.5 yards of Gentle Spirit Grade 1 Alpaca - Beige
Wiggins and Palisade, Colorado
~ 2 ounces
~ 20 wpi

If you want to see my (and the rest of the team's) real-time, actual daily progress then join us at the Team of Wonder on Ravelry. If not, I'll see you here next Friday. :-)

Happy Spinning and Happy Fiber Arts Friday.