Spinning the blues

The first week of the Tour de Fleece has come and gone and I managed to spin at least a little bit every day except one. I'm feeling pretty good about that, considering the lack of spinning time I've had recently.

I'm finishing up the April Showers BFL/Silk fiber, and if I get through it before the end of the tour, I'll start on the rest of the Botanical Wensleydale.

After the tour, I think it's definitely time to look into knitting up a couple of handspun projects!

Tour de Fleece 2015

It's almost Tour de Fleece time again, and October House Fiber Arts is once again sponsoring a team! We had a lot of fun with it last year, and I'm hoping this year will be even more fun.

I'm planning on not one, but THREE prizes throughout the tour to give everybody some encouragement and motivation. So, if you've never participated in the Le Tour de Fleece before, this is a great time to join. You can join our team in the Tour de Fleece group.

Team Name: Team October House 2015

Rules for Team October House:

You must be a member of the Ravelry group to join the tdf team. Join here! Then join Team October House here.

We're a free and easy group, so our rules are simple. Have fun and spin anything you want! However, in the team threads, we ask that you share spinning projects and finished yarn that feature October House fibers. Combination spins, undyed fiber, or colorways from another source are welcomed, provided that the content also includes October House fiber.

Please use the following Ravelry tags for your projects: tdf2015OHFA, tdf2015OctoberHouse

There will be a total of 3 prizes awarded during the tour:

Week One:

One winner will be randomly chosen from posts containing an image in the Team thread on Monday, July 13. Spinners may post as many OHFA WIP images as they wish during this week to qualify. 

Submission dates: Saturday, July 4 - Friday, July 10

Prize: One braid of October House fiber

Week Two:

One winner will be randomly chosen from posts containing an image in the Team thread on Monday, July 20. Spinners may post as many OHFA WIP images as they wish during this week to qualify. 

Submission dates: Saturday, July 11- Friday, July 17

Prize: One braid of October House fiber

GRAND PRIZE:

One Grand Prize winner will be chosen from eligible posts in the OHFA tdf 2015 Grand Prize Thread onFriday, July 31. (This thread will be in the October House Fiber Arts Ravelry group.) In order to qualify for the Grand Prize drawing you must submit images of finished yarn only.

GRAND PRIZE: A $50 shopping spree in the October House Fiber Arts shop with free shipping included. Choose whatever you like!

Winners for the prizes will be chosen using a random number generator.

Tour de Fleece Guidelines (NOT RULES):

Spin every day the Tour rides, if possible. Saturday July 4 through Sunday July 26th. Days of rest: Monday, July 13th and Tuesday, July 21st. (Just like the actual tour.)

Spin something challenging on the challenge day (usually the toughest high mountain stage: this year, it’s Stage 18, on Thursday, July 23rd, when they will climb 5 mountains, including the 1,924m high Col du Glandon).

Wear yellow on Sunday, July 26 to announce victory. Why not wear yellow on any day you feel particularly successful? (Yellow is the color of the race leader in the Tour - but here we are all ‘race leaders’) Other colors if desired: Green (sprinter - think FAST), Polka-dot (climber - as in uphill), and white (rookie).

Almost September

Wow, August is racing by! I've been busy, busy at the dye pots getting ready for the Arkansas Fiber Arts Extravaganza, which is now less than a month (!) away. I'm excited to set up shop for the first time at an event. I'm also excited to see and hear the Yarn Harlot. I think it's going to be a lot of fun.

I've been spending lots of time on the new website, which is very close to being finished, except of course, for the one hundred little details that still need to be updated or added :) 

So, there has been precious little knitting or spinning in the past few weeks. I am still spinning away on my singles from the Tour de Fleece...slowly. And I'm knitting on a couple of things (the gray shawl shown above is one), again...slowly.  Five or ten minutes here and there don't make for very speedy progress. But it is progress, and I'll take it!

Plum Good

There's a lot of plum pictures popping up in my flickr account, since I'm taking a daily progress pic of my Tour de Fleece spinning.  This is a collage of Week 1. I almost got through this braid in the first week, and I'm pretty pleased about it.

I'm not the fastest spinner on the block, and considering the other things I've got going on, I'm thrilled that this is the amount of spinning I accomplished in just one week.  I'm starting to actually believe I could spin 3 braids during TdF.  Go me!

Underway

We are underway with the spinning for Tour de Fleece!  I got a very slow start on Saturday, the first day of the tour. We had to make a flying trip to Jackson, Tennessee and back. Let me tell you, a 13-hour car trip does not make one want to sit and spin.  Mostly the sitting. I was done with the sitting for sure.

But, Sunday dawned clear and bright with a pile of fiber waiting to turn into yarn.

I actually do better at spinning through the week than I do on weekends. We tend to be up, out and doing stuff on the weekends. But through the week, I've always got a couple of hours in the evening to work on whatever project I want - knitting, spinning, etc.

My goal is to spin about 16 ounces of fiber during the TdF.  We shall see if I'm delusional or not as we go along.  That'll be fun, won't it?