Tour de Fleece - Week 2

Here is my second week of the Tour de Fleece. I've kept to my goal of at least spinning something every day (July 10th was the official day of rest). During the second week I worked on the Spunky Eclectic BFL in the "Big Bang" colorway. Can't wait to see it all washed up. 

Week 2
Total time: 5 hr 47 min

Tour de Fleece 2012 - Week 1

Here's a quick look at my first week in my first ever Tour de Fleece.

In the first two days I spun up four ounces of Gotland. Then I moved onto some BFL. Being a relatively new spinner, every month of Spunky Eclectic's fiber club so far has involved a fiber I have never spun. So next I moved onto my first BFL and I'm really loving this fiber, for real. 

Spunky Eclectic BFL in "Big Bang"

 I'm making singles for socks out of it and it is just a joy to spin. Being singles for 3-ply sock yarn does mean that most of this week and, I imagine, a good chunk of next will be spent on this same fiber.

So that's my first week of the Tour de Fleece. So far I'm meeting my goal of spinning everyday.

Total time: 8 hour 44 minutes

Total fiber spun by weight: Around 6 ounces

Total finished yardage: 280 yards

In Which the Tour de Fleece and Gotland Conspire Against Me

A little more early morning spinning (about 35 minutes or so) finished off the last of my 4oz. of Gotland. Towards the last half ounce or so, I started to have Doubts. I started to worry that I was adding too much spin and decided to back off a bit. Don't ask me why I thought it was a good idea to change my spinning part way through. It seems ridiculous now as really most people don't want a skein of yarn that randomly changes part way through. All I can say to defend myself is that I was having scary Doubts and it was early in the morning. It turns out I hadn't spun the bulk of the yarn too tightly - but believe me when I say that I very much spun that last little bit too loosely. 

Look at it sitting there all pretty acting like it's not about to cause me a world full of pain.

 When I went to wind the yarn off the bobbin it began drifting apart - but not completely all at once. No, it did it every so often so I thought with some splicing I could salvage it (ha). After dealing with this I then began the process of felting it. Now here's the part where I pay for not just cutting my losses and getting rid of those drifty bits from a moment ago. You see, most of the yarn is felting beautifully, adding strength to the yarn and stabilizing the twist. The drifty, loosely spun bits? Oh, right, those are felting in the ugly, clumping, never to be torn apart again way. Le sigh.

Nobody knows the trouble I've seen.

A little bit of creative re-skeining and discarding (about 56 hours or so) I'm left with 280 yards of fingering weight that may have gotten into another tangled mess while I was trying to count strands and measure it. Let's not speak of it.

What I've Been Doing for the Last Few Years

So...
It has been a long, long while since I last posted. In all honesty I haven't been doing much in the way of sketching for quite a while. Fear not, my fingers haven't been sitting idle all of this time - they've just been busy creating in a medium that is much more friendly to picking up and putting down.

Any guesses?
Here I'll give you a hint...

Mmmmm. Yarn. I've been obsessed with yarn - touching it, knitting with it, wearing it, and recently, even making it. Now, I'm also going to be blogging about it.

I still have a few old sketches that haven't made their way onto this blog and they might slowly trickle their way here; but I have even more older fiber-y projects that will certainly be showing up. The plan is to have Flashback Fridays for a while to catch up with all that I've been doing.

Now back to that picture hint. This is actually yarn that I spun from this...

Spunky Eclectic 4oz. Corriedale Club Fiber "Abstract"

Into this...

470 yards of navajo-plied light fingering weight

I cannot completely explain the sense of supreme satisfaction this gives me. I just look at it and think, "I freaking MADE this." Which, incidentally, could be a perfect name for this blog if it didn't already have one. In any case, get ready, because it's about to get sheepy up in here.