Every year, Pirate-Husband and I go to Pennsic War, the biggest annual event in the SCA‘s calendar. We will join over 10,000 people for two weeks of food, fun, fighting, classes on every imaginable subject (link to pdf), shopping – and my favourite, sitting in the shade knitting socks and drinking beer. This year, we’re actually making two separate trips up to the campsite....
Three weeks of spinning nearly every day for the Tour de Fleece has been great, for so many reasons. First, because doing something every day (or nearly every day) is bound to make you better at it, and I feel like my spinning skills have subtly increased. No great big leaps of skill or whooshing breakthroughs, but I’m definitely better than when I started....
Although I didn’t begin the Tour de Fleece with a specific goal, one gradually coalesced in my mind as I sat down at the wheel each night: to spin and ply one pound of fibre. If I could do that, I promised myself, then I could buy a new four-ounce braid. For every sixteen ounces out, four in. At that rate I will spin...
After a weekend of spinning whenever I got the chance to sit down, I’m about two-thirds of the way through the Rambouillet. It’s not my most even spinning ever, but it’s certainly even enough to make sock yarn – that is, if I can get the hang of chain-plying. I’ve been watching tutorial videos and I think I know what to do, but doing...
I apologize for the quality of today’s pictures; Pirate-Husband has the camera and I took these shots with my phone. Better than nothing, but not that great. To really change things up a bit, I retrieved this languishing laceweight spindle project for an afternoon. It’s just half an ounce of merino, a fibre sample from Sheepish Creations, that I decided to spin as finely...
The three Jacob colours have been skeined up, though not washed yet. I’m starting to see more of a difference between the dark and medium now that they’re off the bobbin. Whew! The white and medium gray came to 92 yards each, and the dark is 104 yards. That will be more than enough to knit a hat with yarn left over to braid...
I did indeed spin the white bobbin as part of my Day 1 efforts, and got a picture of all three together first thing this morning. I’m quite pleased with it, though I do wish there was a little bit more difference between the dark and medium grays to show off the colourwork better. I doubt that it will look more obvious once it’s...
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...
The Tour de Fleece doesn’t start for four more days, but I’m getting excited about it – perhaps overexcited. I’ve been looking through my fibre stash and deciding on what to spin first, in what weight, with what technique, and wondering just how much of this fluff I’ll be able to get through in twenty-three days. I’m making plans, but of course those might...
Okay, I did it – I signed up for the Tour de Fleece. I joined three teams: Rookies, because it’s my first year; Kool Kromskis, because I’ll be doing most if not all of the spinning on Grace the Sonata; and Lantern Rouge… because with this mysterious ankle injury, I might not be able to spin every day. But I’m going to try my...
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