Day 21: Challenge Day

I'll get to the Tour de Fleece update in a minute - first I have some huge news - my younger brother and his wife are expecting a baby!! I have 2 nieces already thanks to my older brother, but my younger brother and his wife have been trying for quite some time to have a baby without success, so it's pretty awesome that I am going to be an uncle again :D I went and bought myself a set of KnitPro fine interchangeable Symfonie needles to celebrate, because I am likely to be knitting a lot for my new niece/nephew-to-be ;)

Day 17: Plying counts as "rest", right?

So I finished the "Robin Hood" singles today for my 3ply yarn, and then they looked so good on the bobbins that I got impatient to see how the finished yarn was going to turn out! I spent all day plying, the 3ply yarn ended up being 276g, 657m/730yds of about sport weight (no WPI yet, will do that once it has been washed) yarn. And I ended up with leftover singles after running out of the "Pixie Party" (that fibre was more dense than the other two, so I ended up with less singles for the same weight, even though they were spun the same thickness as the others), which I plied into a second, 2ply yarn:

Day 15 - I thought I wasn't going to spin any more laceweight for the Tour...

...but that's exactly what I have ended up doing! Yesterday I finished a full bobbin of Ixchel Cashmere Fling in "Pixie Party" as laceweight singles:

Day 12: More yarn!!

The Tour de Fleece is now officially at the half way point, and today's spinning for me was quite productive! I managed three whole bobbins for Day 11, and today I have finished plying the first skein from those bobbins:

Day 10 - in which my day of rest turns out not so restful!

So today was the first official rest day for the TdF - I didn't spin, but I was certainly not exactly resting! I had a doctor's appointment this morning, so while I was there I got her to check my sore hand out to make sure it was nothing major (it isn't, just overuse, but I have anti-inflammatory and painkilling medications for it for the next 5 days and a warning to take it easy, meh!) Hopefully with the next 2 spins I have chosen, the fibres are much softer than what I have been spinning so far, so my drafting hand will get a break.

TdF Day 9 - back at the wheel!

After 2 days of forced rest due to injury/fibro pain (boooo!), today I am finally back at the wheel and spinning up a storm. I spun the second bobbin of Turtle Sky singles and plied them together, resulting in this:

Day 7: no spinning, but not a day of rest...and a (long!) rant

At the end of the first week of the Tour de Fleece, I am a little disappointed that I didn't get the second bobbin of my Turtle Sky Navajo Churro spun - I did get about half an hour of spinning in today but my hand was just so painful that I couldn't do any more, and decided that resting it was a better idea.

TdF Day 6 and an injury!

I have had another productive day of spinning, albeit hampered by injury....I finally finished plying the Parallel Universe Lincoln singles, and they turned out to be 350m/385yds of Navajo plied 18WPI yarn (which goes a long way toward explaining the injury!)

Day 5: Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of the Universe....

...the Parallel Universe, that is! Halle-freakin'-lujah, I have FINALLY finished the Lincoln singles for the Tour de Fleece - not without drama, with 10 minutes to go till midnight on Day 5 we had a blowout! The leather piece that connects the footman and the treadle of my wheel snapped - and BOY was I thanking the Gods at that point for my wisdom in having purchased a maintenance kit so I had a spare!

Day 4, the endless Parallel Universe, Food, and Whorled Domination!

Day 4 of the Tour de Fleece has finished, and I didn't get as much spinning time as I would have liked today (had plenty of interruptions and stuff, but you get that!) I did however still manage 3 hours of spinning, and in that time I added another 20g of the Parallel Universe Lincoln to the bobbin, bringing the total on the bobbin to 55g (and 45g left to spin). This is what it looks like now:

Day 3 and a bunch of personal bests already!

I just finished my spinning for Day 3 of the Tour de Fleece - I had hoped to finish another skein of yarn for today, but the fibre I was spinning had other ideas! It wanted to be spun very fine, and I have ended up after 6 hours of spinning time with this:

Spinning up a storm, and birthday butterflies :)

It's that time of year again, yes, the Tour de Fleece is ON! For those who have no idea what that is, it's a spinning marathon that runs for the duration of the Tour de France.