A Little Tour Update

I’ve been spinning like a madwoman to finish my Tour de Fleece goal, which was 1400g spun and plied over the course of the tour.  I always make my goal a stashbusting one, the idea being to tackle the mountain of fibre that threatens to overwhelm the storage I’ve got worked out for it – turn it into yarn and then get that resulting yarn out of here too.  I give it all away as gifts for my knitter friends, and well, then it’s their problem, which I care way less about. It’s a perfect solution, because while some of my buddies have the willpower to refuse a gift of yarn, nobody can refuse handspun.  They are my helpless minions in this one way.  I like to think this is extremely satisfying for all of us, though it’s probably just me, and I’m fine with that. 
Here, on Day 19, is where I’m at.

I plied up the singles of the 300g of some reddish/yellow/orange gorgeousness (tag long gone) from Spinners Hill, and ended up with  4 skeins of a yummy 2ply.  (About 230m.)

110g Seldom Scene Farm 80% baby alpaca, 10% silk, 10% angora, in a beautiful colourway called "Spring in the Bluegrass".

Spun up into a two ply that I mostly like, but a friend will love, yielded about 126m.

The fibre was exceptional, and any failings I had with this were really more about my uneasy relationship with alpaca.

It’s underplied for sure, but I don’t know else is wrong with it or what it wants yet, in terms of spinning. More twist? Less?  This attempt is the best run at alpaca so far, so maybe I’ll get it yet.

BMFA 50/50 yak (yum) and merino, in "brick".  I loved spinning this. It’s 200g, ended up being about 280m and I know just who it’s for.  She’ll be helpless.

BMFA Blue Faced Leicester in Jabberwocky. 

(What’s in that shop changes… It looks like what’s there now is the BFL mix, which isn’t what this is, though I bet it looks different and is about the same to spin, but I’m just guessing.)


I love this yarn. If I didn’t have a sworn policy of giving away all the Tour De Fleece stuff, this yarn would be mine.  It ended up being 108g, and about 280m.

Dyeing for Colour  50% bamboo (rayon) and 50% superwash merino in "Harvest Moon".

I’m thrilled with this yarn, to be honest.  It was fun to spin, and by the time I had my singles I could tell I was going to have a yarn I thought was just the bomb.

I was right.  I even managed to somehow overcome my problem of chronic underplying to get a yarn I love a lot.

It’s 115g and yielded a scrumptious 2ply at  224m.

So here I am, sitting with about 833g of fibre spun on day 19 of the Tour, which means that I’m spinning about 43 g a day, instead of the 62g a day that I need to make my goal, which is sort of shocking, since it means I’m way behind, when I really, really felt far ahead.  Maths are not my strong suit, so my instincts are no help here, and I really was surprised when I added it up.  It looked like so much more.

To complete my 1400g goal, I now need to spin about 113g a day to make it, and I’m pretty much regretting the decision to make the yarns as light as they are.  A bulky spin would have eaten the weight up faster, but I would have liked them less, and to my way of thinking (and I admit, my way of thinking has gotten me into this mess – so who knows)  there’s little point in rushing to finish and ending up with yarns I don’t like.  So we’ll see. I’m not sure I can finish at this rate… I do have a life and other commitments, though I’ve made a personal decision to forego doing any housework and laundry for a few days.  It’s a sacrifice, but I’m willing to make it.