If you are not familiar with it, Tour de Fleece is an event for spinners which occurs along side Tour de France. They bike, we spin. The rules are pretty open, but generally spinners set goals for themselves and spin every day.
I have not historically participated in Tour de Fleece. We have often been in the midst of summer travels or had other obligations (one year it was moving) that made Tour de Fleece impractical.
This year, I pretty much forgot about it until I saw it pop up on Ravelry and in Facebook groups and realized that I’m not going anywhere and our apartment is mostly put together. I didn’t have any massive conflicts! Anndddd it had already started.
But, better late than never. I do a bit of spindle spinning most days, but yesterday I decided I’d set myself a goal for the remainder of Tour de Fleece. I am going to tackle my plying. Plying is… not my favorite part of spinning. Yet I enjoyed plied yarns for many reasons, so it’s something I do. Plying fits sort of in the same category as weaving in ends, sewing on buttons and adding zippers. The results are worth the pain, but it is a pain.
So I am going to tackle some long overdue plying, aided by the forcing fucntion that I am running out of spindles and the little dowel rods I slide my cops onto to free up my spindles. I recognize that at some point “buy more dowel rods” ceases to be a good strategy, especially as I do want those finished yarns someday.
Back in January/February I spun up singles from a lovely merino braid called “Spanish Dancer” dyed by Touch of Fiber, a (very) local dyer in the Raleigh NC area. I loved spinning it, and acieved near effortless singles at around 36 wpi. The streaks of dark navy tone deepen the red without making it dirty or dull like black might. I feel like my fiber choices often careen between completely natural and very vivid. This sits elegantly mid way between those.
They have been sitting on their dowel rods ever since, waiting patiently. So I pulled them out along with my last empty spindle. It’s my plying spindle and used to be AwesomeE’s before she decided spinning’s not her thing. She and I both bought spindles back in highschool. Her’s has survived and is now in my possession. Mine… has not. A few too many drops of that drop spindle.
I decided to take the time to wind the singles in pairs into two plying balls. It add a bit of time, but makes the plying itself a bit less of a hassel. Critically, it means I can ply while working because I have a tidy ball instead of my cops on dowel rods bouncing around. I spend a nice chunk of my day on conference calls, and if I’m not in charge of taking notes or driving the call, knitting, crocheting and spinning all keep me focused and away from the (doomed) temptation to multi task by reading emails during calls.
Does my boss know I do this? Yes, yes she does. In fact, you could say that spinning got me my current position. She would be the first to tell you that spotting me spinning in the break room during lunch is what first caught her attention. Sure, my knowledge of our systems, mathematical background and general awesomeness also helped. But spinning is how she first met me.
Anyway, here are singles, plying spindle and my ball winder set up to start making my plying balls:
And after a first day’s effort (including a couple conference calls) I have a nice start on the first half of my singles:
Are you doing anything for Tour de Fleece?