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Monday, August 05, 2013

Pushing on

After posting about my Tour de Fleece spinning I felt inspired to push on and ply the second skein.  As I filled the drop spindle each time I had wound the spun fibre into a centre pull ball using my nostepinde. Now I don't know if I'm missing a trick here but although I love the little nostepinde eggs I find it really tricky to do anything more than a 2 ply from them, especially with fine singles with a lot of twist. Chaos and yarn barf usually ensues. Long story short I wound the singles onto the bobbins from my wheel under a small amount of tension and then spindle plied from the built in lazy Kate. A somewhat convoluted process but less stressful than the alternative.
Having got the wheel out for this purpose it seemed a shame to put it away without doing any actual spinning. I already had one bobbin full of singles in a bright orange wool/silk blend which I bought from Old Maiden Aunt at UK knit camp around 3 years ago so it was high time I hunted out the rest of the fibre and did something with it. By the time my recording of the London-Surrey classic ran out yesterday (another BBC sport recording fail) I had three bobbins full and was ready to get plying. I should have the finished yarn to show you today or tomorrow.

Friday, August 02, 2013

Tour de Fleece

Whilst I've never formally signed up to the Tour de Fleece or set myself tour goals it does act as an annual kickstarter to get me spinning again. I was a bit slow off the mark, in fact the riders had had their first rest day by the time I got going, but I still managed to spin all and ply half of the braid of fibre by the time the peloton reached the Champs Elysée.

The fibre is 100 grams of 100% Southdown dyed by Megan as part of her 2012 sock club. I've ended up with a worsted spun, 3 ply sock yarn. Estimated yardage (once the second skein is plied) is around 320 metres.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Snowy sheep

Snowy oak

Everything looks different in the snow, outlines are smoothed, everything in the landscape turns to black and white, and things that usually look white change to yellow or brown.

Snowy sheep

These guys are certainly wearing the right gear for the snow - can't beat wool.