2016 Tour de Fleece colourways: Mageva

Mageva on Merino d'Arles

The ski resort town of Megève makes two appearances in this year's Tour de France: the finishing point of Stage 18 (the second individual time trial) and the starting line of Stage 20, the last stage before the final jaunt down the Champs-Élysées in Paris.

The name of the town comes from the Celtic name of the original ancient settlement, Mageva, which means village on the water. The estimated date of founding for the local parish is 523, with the Benedictine monks setting up a priory in 1085. The current incarnation as a destination for tourists and skiers began in the 1920s, when the Rothschilds funded a purpose-built ski resort.

This colourway was inspired by the many streams and rivers that flow through the area, draining snow melt away from the mountains during the summers. It combines various blues with the browns of the streambed, and includes flashes of white for the sun reflecting off the waters surface. Cool and refreshing, the undyed sections of the top will blend with the dyed, creating a yarn that is more muted and blended then the fibre might appear at first glance.

Like the first two colourways, Rosé d'Anjou and Chauvet, Mageva is dyed on Merino d'Arles, and will be available starting with the shop update this coming Saturday (14 May) at 10:00 am, and running through the start of the event on 2 July 2016. Stay tuned for the last colourway on Friday!

2016 Tour de Fleece colourways: Chauvet

For our next TdF reveal, we're going to jump from Stage 4 to Stage 13 - the first time trial of the Tour de France, running from Bourd-Saint-Andéol to La Caverne du Pont-d'Arc, home of the stupendous prehistoric cave paintings of Chauvet.

The paintings of Chauvet, discovered by chance in 1994, are estimated to date back to 36,000 years ago, and are renowned for their uncommon representations of predatory animals. Hundreds of animals are depicted on the walls of the cave, including cave lions, panthers, bears and hyenas. Beyond the realistic pictures, the artists used the shape of the walls to emphasise the features of the animals shown.

In looking at images of the cave paintings, I was struck by the variety of earthy colours, generated by combinations of red ochre and charcoal, and I've used these colours in dyeing this top. The result is a blend of reds, rusts, dark browns, charcoal and steely blue. I'm thrilled with this combination, and can't wait to see it spun up!

2016 Tour de Fleece colourways: Rosé d'Anjou

2015 Tour de Fleece colours (clockwise from top left): House of Orange, Le Havre, Lac Blanc and Gamay

For last year's Tour de Fleece, I developed four limited edition colourways based on the course taken by the peloton over the course of the three weeks of the Tour de France. The process of finding parts of the race to highlight and working up the colours was a real jump start to my creative process, and I have been looking forward to this year's batch of colourways ever since!

As with last year, I've sourced a special French base for these colourways - Merino d'Arles. This breed of sheep is from the Provence region of France, and is descended from the first Spanish Merinos imported to the country in 1786, which were then crossed with the local breed in Arles. The resulting sheep are small and sturdy, well able to cope with tough living conditions in the plains and in the mountains, and they produce a fine, bulky wool. The average micron count for the fibre is 20-21 microns (very fine!), but it tends to be on the shorter side of staple length, at approximately 3 inches. It is very, very crimpy, and can be spun to a range of finished yarn weights. 

I spun up a few samples of this fibre as I was working out the colours, and it reminds me of Targhee or Portugeuse Merino. In other words, it is more interesting to spin (in my opinion) then your typical, run-of-the-mill Merino, as it has a nice toothy feel and isn't super slippery. The final yarn is super bouncy and springy - perfect for hats or sweaters! I think this fibre will also give phenomenal stitch definition, due to its elasticity.

On to the first colourway: this one is inspired by Stage 4, which passes through the Loire Valley, where many of the grapes produced end up as gorgeous Rosé wine. 

Rosé d'Anjou on Merino d'Arles

After last year's Gamay colourway, I definitely wanted to do another wine-inspired version for this year's Tour de Fleece. This one, instead of being inspired by a particular grape, is instead taken from the soft pinks of the finished product.

This colourway blends pinks, browns and tans with a special dyeing technique to get a particularly dappled appearance to the dyed fibre, and will spin up as a lovely semi-solid yarn.

Similar to last year, these colourways are only going to be available for a limited time. Starting with the next shop update, on 14th May at 10:00 am, you can order your limited edition colourways up until the start of the Tour de France/Tour de Fleece on Saturday, 2 July. There will also be a Porpoise Fur Tour de Fleece team on the Ravelry board, so please come join us in spinning up a storm in July!

Lab Goddess Fibre Club April 2016

I've managed to get more or less back on schedule with the fibre club, and packages should now be at most of their destinations, so I excited that I can now share this colourway with everyone.

Cacophony on Shetland

This colourway is inspired by Rachel Carson, an American marine biologist and conservationist best known for her popular books on the environment, particularly her 1962 bestseller Silent Spring, which is credited with jumpstarting the modern environmental movement, and led directly to a ban on the use of the pesticide DDT in the United States.

I wanted to counteract the bleakness of Silent Spring with a lively springtime colourway - this one used a lot of colour mixing to get some more complex hues, as well as some unexpected juxtapositions of colours for something exciting. And since it's dyed up on one of my all-time favourite bases, I've already spun mine up!

I split my 4 oz into three equal pieces, then spun one without any further prep, split one in half and spun them end to end and split the third piece into fourths and spun those end to end. This type of fractal spinning is one of my favourite techniques for tops that are highly variegated and have lots of contrast. I'm hoping my resulting chunky/bulky skein will knit up with some more subtle blending of the colours in the final fabric, but I've got to decide on the right project. It's nice and soft so maybe a cowl or a hat for next winter.

If you're in the club please share your spinning and projects as you go along, and if you've missed out on this quarter's sign ups, they'll open back up again on 1 July! 

Lab Goddess Fibre Club March 2016

Cortus on Wensleydale

The March club colourway was inspired by Virginia Apgar, an obstetrical anaesthesiologist who pioneered the testing of a newborn's transition from life inside the womb to life outside after birth. In addition to developing the ubiquitous Apgar Test, she was also the vice president and Director of basic research for the March of Dimes, and a strong advocate for vaccination in the fight against mother-to-child transmission of German Measles (Rubella), which was pandemic in the United States at the time.

The name of the colourway comes from the Latin word for birth, breaking out or originating. Given that March is the month in which my eldest daughter was born, this seemed like an apt name! The colours come from obstetrics - greens for the surgical scrubs worn by doctors and nurses in the delivery room, and for the tiles that are everpresent in hospitals, with a bit of mauve and dark blood red for contrast.

I've been away for the Easter holidays for the last week or so, and I took along my Cortus and a spindle to get a bit of work done on it. And I was struck, once again, but how much I like spinning Wensleydale. This fibre is certainly the polar opposite of last month's Corriedale: from a very straightforward easy-to-spin medium fibre, we've gone straight into longwool territory this month, and I'm finding it to be a lovely change! The Wensleydale is much more slippery to spin then a lot of other wools that we've used in the club, due to its lack of crimp, but the shine and lustre of the singles are amazing. I think I'm going to keep this one as a singles yarn, both to emphasise the drape of the yarn and to keep the colours from getting too muddied. Which means it's going to have to become some kind of lacey something to keep from biasing...anyone have any suggestions?

There is still some space left in the second quarter of the 2016 LGFC, if you'd like to join in the fun. Club membership gets you three monthly shipments of 4 oz/113 g of an exclusive colourway inspired by a female scientist, and also includes a brochure with information about the scientist, the development of the colourway and the fibre base. We'd love to have you join us!