Double whammy

So, there are a couple of big events coming up in the wooly world, and I'm trying to come up with a plan of attack/list of goals that will not result in me either A) spending copious nighttime hours spinning and/or knitting or B) having a nervous breakdown as I try to spin and knit and move house right in the middle of it all.

Up first is my favoritest wool-along ever, the Tour de Fleece. It combines spinning of the fiber variety with spinning of the cycling variety. Spinners set themselves a challenge, i.e. to spin four miles of laceweight cashemere on a Country Craftsman (!), and spend the duration of the Tour de France (30 June - 22 July) trying to meet that challenge. Last year, I spun up 2425 yds/51.3 oz of fiber. In 2012, I spun up 2420 yds/39.4 oz*. You can perhaps see the trend in the weights? So initially (that would be back in August of last year), I thought I'd aim for continuing that trend - could I spin up 60 oz in 3 weeks?

The second event is, of course, the Ravelympics. Knitters choose a challenging project, cast on during the Opening Ceremonies (27 July) and try to finish before the Closing Ceremonies (12 August). The first time I tried this was in 2006, when it was run by the Yarn Harlot from her blog, and called the Knitting Olympics. My challenge was Adamas, my first ever real lace project. Didn't manage to finish. The second time around (2008) it was the Summer Games, and somehow that didn't quite work for me (oh yeah, summertime in Houston = no knitting! Too damn hot!) In 2010, I boldly ventured into Ivy League Vest territory, and yet again managed to not finish within the allotted time.

Given that 1) we moving in July, and Himself and I are bailing out for a week to go chase some guys in spandex through the mountains, 2) I have a tendency to FAIL at the whole Knitting Olympics thingie anyway, 3) I will actually be going to Olympic events (hooray!) and 4) did I mention we're moving? By which I mean some lovely gents will come, pack up all our stuff, drive it three miles and unpack it, leaving us me to sort everything right again, it's safe to say that I will not be spinning 60 oz of anything. I also will not be knitting any lace shawls or steeked colorwork masterpieces. I do, however, have a plan.

To celebrate our three years in the UK/the Diamond Jubilee/London 2012/going to play in West Wales in October with cool knitting people, here are my combined Tour de Fleece/Ravelympics plans (which were actually first voiced in March...).

1. Spin up my Gotland and organic Hebridean fleece goodies into approximately 1200 yds and 200 yds respectively of 2-ply fingering weight yarn. 
2. Knit up said yarn into the Stasis Pullover. Which will then be my offering for Today's Sweater at P3.

That's it. Of course, since what I currently have is about 1.5 kilos of unwashed, unprocessed fleece, there is some serious prep work to be done. But I think this is challenging enough to be worth trying, but not so out of reach that I'm going to be sobbing into my knitting late some dark evening around 10th August.

Do you have goals for the Tour de Fleece or Ravelympics? What are they? Are you doing any prep beforehand? Or just jumping in on the first day, guns ablazing? Post a comment with your challenges for either or both events, and we'll see what everyone's coming up with. Good luck!

PS - between 15th-20 July, while I'm brutalizing myself in the Pyrenees, I will hopefully manage to do some spindling of some of the masses of Hello Yarn fiber I've got lying around, just so I can post something on the team thread. If I can make it through 4 oz, I'll be pleased. And if I finish off all the natural fleece, I'll start on a sweater lot of HYFC I've got lying around. But I'm making no promises on that score...

* I have only just noticed that I spun almost the exact same yardage both years. It's those damn laceweight singles from 2010 bumping up that statistic...

The last of the Tour de Fleece yarns

A horrible picture of a nice yarn

Fiber: merino/alpaca/camel/silk from Krafty Koala
Spun/plied: 12:1
Stats: 278 yds/4.5 oz, about sport weight
Comments: I was drawn to two things about this fiber - the blend and the dark, gloomy colors. Maybe it was the fact that it was grey and rainy and cold during Knit Nation...in any event, I was excited to spin this up, and jumped right in during the Tour de Fleece.

I split the top in half across the length and then split each half into four strips - this seems to have become my standard fiber prep these days. I used to do a lot more spinning from the full width of top from one end going straight through to the other end, but I've been trying to mix up and blend the colors in a lot of the stuff I've been spinning recently, to move away from dramatic stripey-ness. It remains to be seen if that approach has been actually successful.

Back to the fiber: I had a tough time spinning this, largely due to the difference in staple length between the various fibers. The merino and alpaca and silk were all ok, but I kept ending up with little puffs of short, fuzzy, presumably camel fibers that wouldn't stay integrated in the top. The silk was also pretty obvious in the blend and not terribly well mixed in. To be perfectly honest, I should have expected this problem ahead of time, just given the composition of the top, but I don't think I'll try a similar combination again.

I was hoping to end up with enough yardage for a Bitterroot shawl, but fell well short. The yarn is lovely and drapey and has gorgeous sheen, so maybe this should be my yarn for a little shawlette design. I can do Bitterroot with last year's TdF laceweight instead.

Fiber Friday: TdF Yarns #4 and #6

Fiber: Hello Yarn Fiber Club January 2010, "Loch", 83% mohair/15% nylon/2% merino
Spun/plied: 12:1, short forward draw
Comments: I was a bit concerned about this colorway - the combo of blue and orange has never really appealed to me, regardless of what the colorwheel says should be true. I decided to split my first 4 oz bump into two color groups and spin them seperately. Here's what the fiber looked like originally.

I broke the top apart into blue/green chunks and orange/olive chunks. Each piece was stripped into 4 lengths and I tried to mix them up as much as possible in the spinning. Here is the first batch of finished singles before plying.

I spun this with a short forward worsted draw, and the singles ended up a bit thicker then my usual default yarn - the mohair seemed a bit clumpy, more like tencel then wool I think. But really fun to spin, and so smooth and drapey - I knew the finished yarn was going to be incredible.

Originally I was going to split the second four ounces down the middle and spin for matching chain-plied stripey socks. However. Once the first two skeins came out of their spa treatment, I started thinking that I needed to do the same with the second bump. So when the cyclists hit the Alpes, I was spinning away on another orange vs. blue situation.

 

Hooray Tommy!

I ended up with about 220 yds of blue and 150 yds of orange, approximately DK weight. Now I just have to find the right pattern for them!

Tour de Fleece roundup

It's been a wooly few weeks.

That right there is 2425 yds of spun yarn (of varying ply numbers ranging from 1-3), totalling 51.3 oz (3.2 pounds) and 20 oz more of handdyed BFL fiber that I got distracted with somewhere along the line there (more on that later perhaps). Clockwise from the right side: 3 skeins of 3-ply Romney from Hello Yarn in "Timber" with a mini-skein of chain plied leftover singles, 1 skein of merino/alpaca/camel/silk blend from Krafty Koala that I picked up at Knit Nation and couldn't resist, 5 mini-skeins (~30 yds each) of natural colored Shetland that I spun up as bulky samples for a biiiiiig sweater coat project idea percolating in my head. Then there's a teensy skein of purple merino/Shetland blend that Judith handed out in her class at Knit Nation which I finally plied and washed. Next up: my experiment with thick and thin singles in Amy's "Twenty Ten" Corriedale. Then David's glorious Polwarth in "Cairns": one skein of 3-ply and one skein of 2-ply from the leftover singles. Finally, in the middle, 4 skeins of incredible drapey mohair/nylon/merino from Hello Yarn again. Originally one colorway ("Loch") of orange/olive/blue/green, which I split into two color groups and spun separately. The Romney is going to become a sweater for me me me, and I think Loch will be some kind of triangular shawl with some garter ridges. The rest of it is as yet un-assigned to particular projects.

Once again, the Tour de Fleece was an absolute blast. I did about 12 oz more then I managed last year (one of the goals on my List), got through one of my (at least) three sweater lots of Hello Yarn fiber, and got to spin new-to-me fibers (Polwarth, mohair blend, merino/alpaca/camel/silk). Plus I've got material for several weeks of Fiber Friday posts.

I must say that I'm not terribly motivated to start the wheel spinning again anytime soon, but...tomorrow is Tuesday, and according to Stephanie, Tuesdays are for spinning. There is some Spunky Eclectic Panda that I was wanting to get to...

Fiber Friday: Tdf Yarn #3

Hooray! The huge whacking pile of Romney is done!

Fiber: Hello Yarn Fiber Club September 2010 offering, "Timber" Romney
Spun/plied: 9.25:1/8.5:1, 3-ply (and chain ply for the leftovers)
Stats: 1087 yds/23.5 oz, ~10-12 wpi, ~730 ypp, about DK weight.

My first experience spinning Romney was not terribly successful - it was fun to spin, but the finished product was scratchy and not so pleasant. I suspect that spinning from the fold was the culprit, leaving all those coarser staple ends to stick out. This time around I spun worsted style, and the finished product is a win.

I had six bags of fiber, and I wanted to mix up all the colors as much as possible. I split each 4 oz piece into fourths, then strip each length into four pieces. I lined up the six bags and put a strip into each one sequentially. I won't know until I start knitting it up how well the mixing worked, but I'm pretty certain there won't be a predictable stripe sequence!

Given my prediliction to overtwist, and the tendency of coarser fibers to get wirey with too much twist, I choose to spin this on a lower ratio then I usually use, and to ply on an even lower ratio. This is the first time I've used the plying head for my Lendrum in almost 4 years, but it was perfect for this yarn (and gave me 8 oz skeins!). I tried to be sure I wasn't putting in too much plying twist especially - I wanted the yarn to be nice and loose and drapey. The first skein is perfect, but the other two might have a bit too much plying twist. I debated going back through and taking out a bit of twist, but decided to leave it for post-TdF.

I had 0.5 oz of singles left over which I chain plied - I don't know the yardage yet, as they're drying on the back porch as we speak - and I hope there's enough there for trim on something. It's kind of neat to see how the chain ply compares to the 3 ply in terms of how the colors play off each other. The 3 ply looks pretty garish up close, but from farther away (or on the spinning bobbin as I was skeining it) the colors blend really nicely.

Now I've got to decide on a sweater pattern. I'm thinking something with garter stitch because of the 3 ply, maybe Cobblestone, but I need to go do some pattern searching on Ravelry. After the Tour finishes however...there's about 12 oz to go on my list!

Day 14: 32 oz of a proposed 44 finished. I only need to do another 8 oz to beat last year's total!