TdF Week 1

Well that's the end of the first week as far as my spinning goes.  I've managed to complete three challenges in the DIY and Dye Group on Ravelry.  The first was the tweed I showed you last week.  Here it is finished :-

The next challenge I chose was "spin your pet" and Jak (my cat) was happy to oblige!  I'd been saving his fur for a little while and, although there wasn't a huge amount, it would make a little sample.

I used my cotton carders for this and made "punis" which are like skinny rolags, rolled around a dowel.  The fibres were very short, but probably no shorter than cotton, so I thought it would probably work OK.

It was not like spinning cotton, it was much more difficult, but I got there in the end.

This was the yarn spun, but not plied.  I made it into a centre pull ball and plied from each end.  The result :-

Not even enough to make a sock for one paw, but never mind!!

The third challenge was mohair dyed in the team colours : teal, purple and grey.  I didn't have purple but the violet that I used works quite well.  This is super-kid mohair that I bought last summer at Le Lot et La Laine festival here in France and it's absolutely gorgeous.  Really soft, easy to card and easy to spin - dream fibre!!

I dyed the whole lot in one pot, just poured on each dye separately and hoped for the best.

I was in a bit of a quandary as to how to spin these.  Either a gradient, or just mix the colours up.  In the end I worked from one colour to the next, spinning one rolag each time and then plied from each end of a centre pull ball again.  I didn't want to Navajo ply it because I wasn't sure how this would poof up as a 3-ply, so 2-ply it was.

This still needs to be washed, but you'll see the finished yarn at the end of TdF when I summarize everything I've done.  I really love the way this has turned out and think I may just have to dye some more in these colours to spin after the Tour de Fleece has finished for this year.

So, now to go find out what week 2's challenges are!

Tour de Fleece is Here Again!

Another year has flown by and brought me to one of my favourite events of the year - Tour de Fleece 2018.  We've got lots of challenges planned again in Team DIY and Dye, and I've chosen to start with a tweed yarn using some merino I dyed in the spring with woad from the garden.

The preparation for tweed yarn can be quite time-consuming.  I tried putting the unprepared fleece through the drum carder, but it came out a bit rough and "neppy" (lots of little balls of fluff mixed in with the nice straight fibres), so I hand-carded the lot into rolags first.  Then I put the rolags through the drum carder which meant an extra step, but it was much smoother that way.

The blue was carded three times, then I added lots of colours (naturally-dyed leftovers from 5 (I think) years ago.

The whole lot was then carded another 3 times to integrate the colours with the blue.

I think this was the second pass through the drum carder, but it's looking pretty good.

After the final pass, the resulting batts didn't look too promising and I began to think I'd mixed it too much,

but once I started spinning the colours just started to pop out.  This is as far as I got today, but I have carded more for tomorrow and will hopefully finish this bobbin then.

Jacey Boggs from PLY Magazine is running a series of challenges this year - one a week - the prize for some lucky spinner is a year's subscription to PLY Magazine.  Very nice and very worth having!  This week's challenge is tweed yarn, so I'll be submitting my final photo for a chance to win (not that that matters, because the whole idea is to challenge yourself to spin something you might not otherwise try).

Roll on tomorrow!!