Tour de Fleece Thus Far

Day 1



Finished spinning Suri/BFL that I started months ago.

Day 2



Plied it. It's a 2-ply heavy laceweight. I lost count when winding it onto my niddy noddy so I'm not sure yet what the yardage is. I think I want to overdye it.

Touring Starts Soon

I have been really remiss in not blogging this.



This was my birthday present from Wes. (I gave him the web address and told him exactly what to order.) It's a cherry Hansen MiniSpinner with a Woolee Winder. I love it. It hums along spinning away at an even speed. The Woolee Winder loads the bobbins so evenly my spinning looks just perfect there. It fits into a tiny tote bag that comes with it. I love taking it to spinning on first Fridays at The Fiber Gallery. So much easier than taking my Lendrum. But since we got George I put it away, worried that he or Isabella would get tangled in the cord and pull it off the table, or knock it off, or in some other way damage it.

But tomorrow is the start of the Tour de Fleece and I'm on Team Footloose. My goal is simple, to spin. I will be away from my wheel for five days while I'm at camp. I just want to make a point to do some spinning every day I am home. I'll finish that suri alpaca/Bluefaced Lecicester I got from Toots le Blanc at Madrona that's on the bobbin. Then I'll dig out some other long-forgotten spinning project.

Who else is doing Tour de Fleece?

In Advance of Screen-Free Sunday

I'm making so-so progress on my sock. I've been sick all week (just a cold and a lot of crud in the chest) and I've been kind of spacey. I knit all night on Thursday and realized that I only knit one half of a cable round about 8 rounds back. I had to tink back stitch by stitch. Then I Friday night I knit about an inch or two past where I was supposed to start my heel. Tink. Tink. I finally finished the heel and gusset decreases and am working my way quickly to the toe.

I was stuck at home yesterday waiting for new washing machine to be delivered so I finally dyed the yarn I spun for last year's Tour de Fleece. It's a sweater's worth of Cormo/silk that's bulky and slubby. I put it on the drying rack today and set it outside. While I was at work it started to rain. A lot. Fortunately none had a) blown away or b)gotten totally resoaked. I was going for a dark reddish-brown. I think it will end up much lighter than I'd hoped.

Tomorrow I'm heading to Tacoma to see the Gee's Bend exhibit. Have a great Sunday everyone!

Summer Seattle Style

We're having a "heat wave" in Seattle. Today it got up to 90. Tomorrow it will be going up to 97 which is really fucking hot by anyone's standards. But here in Seattle we tend not to have air conditioning. So tomorrow you will find us at the mall.

But today we headed to the beach. We've been to several lately. The beauty of Seattle is that there is water in every direction. So far this summer we've taken the kids to Alki and Magnuson beach. They've headed to Greenlake, Madison beach and a few other bodies of water while at camp. We spent the morning at Carkeek. It was cool and breezy. The kids played in the sand and watched some guys with a set-up I've never seen before. They had some really light-weight half-circle sails that they had attached to their waists and a boogie board kind of thing. They were riding around, skimming and jumping in the water. It looked like a lot of fun.

I realized yesterday that I completely missed the start of the Tour de Fleece. I think between the late start and knitting camp next week (!) I will not be getting in 30 hours of spinning.