Tour de Fleece, 2009 the end

Peggy won!

July 26, 2009 7:16 a.m. - Completed my Tour de Fleece challenge this morning! 3 bobbins-full, 16 ounces. Whew - Yellow Jersey earned just before the official ending of the race at 8:29 a.m. Pacific Time!

The next part of this project is to spin another 16 ounces, this time using plain CVM, and then ply them together.

July 4, 2009 Started the 2009 Tour de Fleece challenge of 16 oz of CVM Angora. By Day 15 I had completed 2/3s of the challenge.

1 lb. of CVM Angora top from Yellow Creek Cottage in Ohio. This one has about 20% Angora in with the CVM, and is a natural grey. It’s more light tan than grey, but that’s OK. It will be fun to spin, and then ply with the CVM.

***

Rebecca did not finish. It became abundantly clear on day 15 that, with only half the project completed and less than half the race remaining, I wasn't going to be able to finish my project. It's all good though. At this point I am more than half way through the 9.4 oz, and it will be done fairly soon. I got to spin every day, I used stash fiber and I like the resulting yarn. Yea for Peggy and all the others who earned the yellow shirt! Congrats everyone!

2009 Tour de Fleece, Day 15 update

Peggy, two full spools

Peggy, starting the third spool

Rebecca, one spool of 2-ply, about 470 yards
Rebecca, beginning the third spool

2009 Tour de Fleece - Day 7 update

Peggy
CVM Angora blend
Day 1

Day 2

Day 7

Rebecca
Yak Merino blend

Day 1

Day 2

Day 7

2009 Tour de Fleece - Day 1

Rebecca will spin 9.4oz of 50/50 yak-merino blend from Sarah Anderson of Great Balls of Fiber and hopes to spin it the same as the 4oz 2008 Tour de Fleece batch. This should make enough for a very large circular or square shawl.

Peggy has decided on one pound of CVM/Angora from Yellow Creek Cottage in Ohio. Ultimately this will be plied with one pound of 100% CVM from the same source.

That's the plan. We shall see.

Get ready, Get set

Tour de Fleece
July 4th through July 26th, 2009

Now is the perfect time to finish the spinning project
currently on your wheel,
free up those bobbins
and contemplate your

'09 Tour de Fleece challenge.

Last year we both worked with luxury fibers, thinking that it would take quite some time to spin them and spin them well. Nope. Blasted right through and did a darn fine job of it, too, if I do say so myself. And I do.

Peggy's '08 Tour results:
left to right

Cashmere, Pygora, Yak Merino

Rebecca's '08 Tour results:
50/50 Yak Merino from Sarah Anderson on top
Silk Mohair from Velda Mack below

The whole pile:

So. Nice. Wish you could feel them.
These are some very soft, lofty yarns and we love them all.

We haven't knit with any of them yet,
although some swatching was done to test the results.
As I said: nice.

So get on that, ok? July 4th is just two weeks away!

Tour de Fleece, Day 23 and The End

The final day of Le Tour de Fleece found us with a lovely pile of newly spun fiber, a total of 2,037 yards.

Left to right: 198 yard of 100% Cashmere by Peggy, 130 yards of 100% Pygora by Peggy, 624 yards of 50/50 Yak Merino by Peggy, 495 yards of 66.6/33.3 Mohair Silk by Rebecca, 590 yards of 50/50 Yak Merino by Rebecca

Rebecca's pile:

Yak Merino on top

Mohair Silk below

Finished project #2: 50/50 Merino Yak. 3.9oz, 590 yards of 2-ply, 24 wpi. Started spinning on July 7th and finished on July 26th, one day shy of the final day of Le Tour de Fleece ~ yea me, I achieved my Tour goal of spinning every day and I'm extremely happy with the resulting two hanks of lace-weight yarn. Perhaps my goal for next year will be to spin something other than lace-weight.

2-ply on walnut skeiner

2-ply close-up

2-ply on spool w/ penny for scale

Peggy's pile:
Cashmere, Pygora, Yak Merino

Finished Project #3 (2008 Tour de Fleece) on Saturday, July 26th. I ended up with 624 yards of lace weight.

I purposely over-spun and over-plied to get a decent twist remaining in the yarn after washing. You can see how the yarn relaxed in the bathwater (fourth photo) and how kinky it started out (third photo.)

I’m planning to dye the yarn and hopefully, 600+ yards will be enough for a pretty baby blanket.

624 yards of Yak Merino, washed and relaxed

Pre-washed 2-ply on the skeiner, with a penny for scale

Pre-washed hank, over-spun and over-plied

Washing:

Tour de Fleece, Day 15

Peggy's Project #2: 2 oz. of cashmere fiber in stash since January 7, 2006, purchased at the St. Distaff Day spin-in from Roberta Maier of Breezy Meadow Farm. Started spinning on July 6th, and on July 12th, I'd finished plying, washing and drying. Only 198 yards, but out of 2 oz., that's not too bad. I was aiming at Baby weight, but it's almost lace weight.

2 oz Cashmere

Plying

198 yards lace weight

Peggy's Third Project: 8 oz 50/50 Yak Merino blend purchased in 2007 at Black Sheep from Carolina Homespun.

Projected Plan: Spin it 'Baby' weight for sweet little baby project, dyed appropriate color.

Rebecca's continuing Second Project: 4oz 50/50 Yak Merino spun at lace weight. My original plan was to three-ply it for socks but when I two ply it to test the weight as I'm spinning it's just so darn nice that all I can think of is how great it would be as a shawl so I've divided the last third in twos and am going to just fill up the two bobbins and 2-ply it. It'll be fine. And, as Barbara said yesterday while we were all out at Alice Lake's house for Dye Day, "You're going to make socks to put in stinky old shoes out of this????" (made face to go with sentiment). It did seem a crazy idea when put that way...

Tour de Fleece, Day 2

Well, that wasn't quite the challenge we thought it would be.
Apparently we have learned a lot about spinning in the last year ~
what we thought would take quite a lot of time...didn't.

Peggy:

We took a 'spinning with Pygora' class at Blacksheep in 2007; I bought some of the soft stuff and felt that spinning this fiber to specific 'baby' weight would be a difficult challenge. But no. I was pretty much finished with it by 5 p.m on Day One. It will make a lovely pair of booties and maybe a baby hat. I may dye it first.

Getting started on foam insulation.

Single

130 yards of 2-ply

Rebecca:
Velda Mack (she of the Pinkity Pink Pink fiber Peggy used in her big Faroese Shawl) grabbed me on the way out the 2008 Blacksheep door, to say 'hi' and to show off this wonderful blend of 2/3 mohair and 1/3 silk ~ not exactly my style but after all, it WAS Velda, it was only $3.50/oz and it was a pretty color. $12.00 and 3.6 ounces later, I thought it was a fairly inexpensive way to say goodbye to Blacksheep.

Getting started on foam insulation

2 spools of singles

Done by 4:15p on Day Two
495 yards of 2-ply ~ enough for a little shawl.

'Plan B':

Peggy's cashmere, 2 oz.
Perhaps this will take awhile...

Getting started on a foam core.

Rebecca's 50/50 Yak Merino, 4 0z @ $4.45/oz
Plan: spin it finely enough to 3-ply it for socks.

We will try to update more frequently for the next few weeks than we usually do, because of Le Tour de Fleece. Apparently 'Plan B' just means spinning every day of Le Tour and grabbing the next fiber that catches our eye as soon as we finish one.

Tour de Fleece

We signed up.

It starts today and goes till the 27th. For details, go here.

Peggy's pygora in grams

Rebecca's mohair silk in ounces

We shall see what happens.