In Which the Pirate Begins the Tour.

Pirate-Husband and I had some of the usual chores to do this morning, but as soon as we got back from the grocery store I excitedly brought my wheel downstairs to the living room, set up in front of the big windows, and got started on the Tour de Fleece!

I’ve tagged a few fibres in my stash on Ravelry with “tdf10”, but the only real plan I made was to begin with this Jacob roving sampler from Firefly Farm. With this hat (pdf link) in mind, I began spinning a low-twist woolen yarn that’s considerably heavier than my usual sock-weight singles. It was difficult to spin thicker yarn at first, but by the end of the second bobbin I’d gotten the hang of it and was even beginning to understand the very basics of the long draw. I will probably spin the white roving up later tonight, but I wanted to take these pictures while there was still natural light. The dark and medium colours are fairly close to one another, so the hat might have subtle patterning rather than vivid, but that will be just fine. Depending on what the yarn feels like when it’s knit up, I might line the hat with polar fleece.

Because I had no good way of dividing each colour in half before I started, I plan to wind up the singles into a center-pull ball, then I’ll make a plying ball with both ends held together, and then I will run those together through the wheel. Making a plying ball rather than just plying from the center-pull ball might seem tedious, but it will head off the tangles which are almost inevitable otherwise.

This has been a great start to the Tour de Fleece for me, and I’m so exited about the rest of the challenge!