Tour de Fleece 2012...

... has begun... And we are off!

Tour de Fleece is a challenge for spinners organized at Ravelry and coincides with the famed Tour de France. Spinners who sign up for Tour de Fleece may join one of hundreds of teams. Last year I spun with "Team Men Spin" but since I don't see them this year, I'm spinning with "Peloton", the main group.

The challenge is to spin something every day the Tour de France is on (this year it's June 30th through July 22nd). Additionally, we are challenged to spin something challenging on July 18 to coincide with the toughest high mountain stage for the bikers.

I had such a blast participating last year that I could not resist it this year. It is a tremendous motivator. Much enthusiasm is generated in the threads at Ravelry with oodles and oodles of fantastic pictures and write-ups of everyone's spinning. It's just phenomenal.

I got in about 2 hours of spinning today, starting the tour with 4 oz. of lovely Blue-Faced Leicester/Silk blend roving. It came as 2 separate colors in a colorway called "Cinnamon Toast". I am spinning the 2 colors separately and will ply them into a barber pole yarn. For that reason I will 3-ply using 3 separate strands of yarn instead of Navajo plying--which I am so fond of. It is not possible to create a barber pole yarn using Navajo plying technique.

I spun up 2 bobbins today and will spin the 3rd and ply tomorrow. This is a picture of a little corner in the backyard where I like to spin. It's so heavenly relaxing to sit in the shade and spin listening to all the bird chatter (the wild ones and my own). Tomorrow evening I will have a pic of the finished skein.

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I have a new subway project under way. Yippee! It's another lace project called "Print O'The Wave Stole" that I'm knitting also in Malibrigo lace weight in a luscious color named "Brllante". So far:

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Tomorrow, I hope to begin warping my loom for a broken twill pattern called "Dornik". My plan is to weave cloth with the possible goal of turning it into a vest. We'll see how it goes. I found the pattern in a Book titled "New Key to Weaving" by Mary Black.

I do not know what consitutes a "broken" twill. Must add this to my list of things to research.