Month: July 2025

Tour de Fleece Update and Weather

/ LDSVenus / 14 Comments

1st picture is my progress on the 50/50 camel/red Eri silk for days 16 – 18. This is spinning faster than I thought, I’m around 1/2 finished on the 1st bobbin. Because the silk is very slippery, even tho the camel being soft and short would normally require a very short draw to spin, the length and slippery nature of the silk allows me to draw it out more than a short draw but not a long draw, so it is going faster than I estimated. I love the softness of the fiber as I spin it. I’m trying to not let it be very thin, tho it would be easy to do that, because this is a gift for my previous sister in law, who I feel pretty close to. She has a medical disorder that makes it harder now with tremors to handle smaller things, so I thought if this yarn is more of a heavy fingering or light sport weight maybe she could still knit something with it, and if not, she can just feel the softness of this fiber, which is amazing. I will definitely have to get more of this fiber when Camaj Fiber Arts gets more in! Post Script, my ophthalmologist loved the skein of yarn and said she had had a very hard last couple of days and that this skein of yarn had just made her day! Giving is a blessing for the receiver and the giver :).

Well today was very nice in the upper middle 80’s and less humidity, however you can see where our weather is headed starting tomorrow though next Tuesday. The blue picture is the normal temps and the red one is with the heat index (the dew point and humidity level will be high.) I will be staying inside most of the time. Sunday I will go to church but it’s an air conditioned building and I have a/c in the car so I should be ok :P. Monday however, I’m not going anywhere. August is normally our hottest month of the year, so I shudder to think what next month will be like. Well actually I can imagine, 2 years ago when my daughter had an outdoor wedding in August, it was 118 with the heat index (that’s abnormally and obnoxiously hot for here), yeah, everyone was melting! Told her if I melted she could pick me up with a stick and a spoon and carry me inside to the reception :P. Everyone stay safe!!

Tour de Fleece 2025 update

/ LDSVenus / 6 Comments

The first 3 pictures are from day 14. The 1st picture is what was left from plying, I’d say I did pretty well not having a lot left over! The next picture is the open skein after washing before twisting it up in to a skein, I measured 252 yards, which should be a DK weight for 97 grams.  This was BFL-Corriedale cross 64%, Alpaca 27% and Sari Silk waste 9%. I have to say that the blue bled in the water when I washed it, so I rinsed it in vinegar (it helps to set the color), but nope it bled in that water too. So I rinsed it a 3rd time using a conditioner for the fiber, and there was still some bleeding in the water. I’ll have to tell her to make sure that she doesn’t hand wash it with anything else until the blue is done bleeding :(. A friend told me blue is hard to set, and so it is! I was very pleased because the skein was very balanced, no twisting to one side when held up in the open skein, just hung there straight up and down :). This skein, except for the blue not staying put in the yarn :P, was a pleasant spin and great looking yarn. You can enlarge the pictures by clicking on them.

The last 2 pictures are the camel/red eri silk, day 15. I weighed it and it was about 120 grams, so I split it into two 51grams balls, I just have one in the picture. The 2nd picture in the start of the spin. It is much thinner than the skein above, which I assumed it would be, both of those fibers spin thin. But this spin is going to take a bit longer because it takes longer to get the same amount of fiber on the bobbin because it’s thinner. I am going to guess that this will end up being a fingering weight. I will use the left over fiber, after dividing it, to card on my drum carder with other fibers for some fun batts. I will have to spin more than 30 min a day on this fiber to get anywhere close to being done by the end of the Tour de Fleece! I’ll see how far I get with 45 min or maybe bump it up to 1 hr.

The weather yesterday was ok in the lower 80’s but today is supposed to be 89, and 92 on Wed and 91 on Thursday, and up to 101 with the heat index and the muggy meter said sweltering. Sigh, and next month is our hottest month of the summer, that’s a bit scary!

Update for Tour de Fleece 2025 2nd Bobbin

/ LDSVenus / 10 Comments

This was days 11, 12 and 13. the middle picture is day 13 where I spun the last of the roving for this fiber and also the two bobbins or singles are finished. Tomorrow I will ply these two singles together to get a 2 ply yarn :), and wash it and let it dry, and I will begin on Sunday with my next spin.

Picture #1 (you can click on the pictures to enlarge them), I put my bulky flyer and bobbin on my Kromski Polonaise spinning wheel so I can make sure the bobbin doesn’t run out of space as I ply these 2 bobbins of singles. You can see the difference of the bulky bobbin in the first picture against the regular size bobbins in the last picture. If you look hard you can also see the flyer difference in the 1st picture versus the 2nd picture. My regular bobbins in the last picture are different weights, two of them are 57 grams, and one is 53 grams, I use a magic marker and put the weight of each bobbin on the end. I weigh them after spinning and subtract the weight of the bobbin to get the spun singles weight. The fiber on one weighed 48 grams and the other weighed 49 grams. Pretty close. If I have left over singles on one, which I imagine I will, I will Navajo ply it (aka Andean plying) or practice chain plying and have a tiny skein to remember my spin :). I will put a picture up of my finished skein on Tuesday, so you don’t miss my Monday Funny post :P. I will be gifting this skien to my ophthalmologist (eye doctor) on Wednesday.

Yesterday was a beautiful day in the 70’s with very little humidity. Today was in the low 80’s but the dew pt was 71% and humidity 82% so it was a little muggy feeling. We have thunder storms coming in tomorrow through next Wed. Tuesday through Thursday will be in the lower 90’s, not sure how much the rain will affect the “feels like” temps, but I’m sure it will not be fun!

Stay safe and enjoy your gardening and/or crafting out there!

Tour de Fleece Update, 2nd Bobbin 2025

/ LDSVenus / 9 Comments

This is days 7, 8, 9 (a rest day) and 10, so only 3 days of spinning. I’m closer to having the 2nd bobbin done and then plying, but not there yet :P. I think maybe 3 more days. As long as it’s done by the end of the week I’m ok because it’s going somewhere next week. Then I will start spinning that beautiful camel and red Eri silk. I generally let the singles on the bobbin rest for 24 hrs before plying when I finish to let them settle. So for that next day after I finish the bobbin I will work on some alpaca I have on my Rick Reeves wheel, I’ll insert a picture when I spin on it. That alpaca, from a cria (baby alpaca), is like butter, it’s so soft and spins much faster than the wool I’m spinning now. Smoother fibers means more glide as you spin so it goes faster.

My new Tour de Fleece tee came in, isn’t that just too cute! She always comes up with some cute stuff! Love that this one was in color, now I can be obnoxious with “I’m a spinner” when I go shopping, lol. If anyone wants one you can get it at Fiber Love Diary‘s web site. I also bought a sticker with that same design to go on a 32 oz glass I bought from her last year, that had last years sticker on it. I think I can get two more stickers on it for the next two Tour de Fleeces, lol. For my fellow spinners, she also has spinning fiber!

Our weather is up and down temp wise and storms coming in tomorrow, typical summer weather. Grateful for air conditioning!

Tour de Fleece Update

/ LDSVenus / 2 Comments

The first picture is day 5. I finished the first bobbin (sitting on the top of my wheel) and started the 2nd bobbin, the one behind it. The 2nd picture is day 6, progress on bobbin 2 :). My hope is that I will have both bobbins finished by the middle of next week and plied. I’m spinning this yarn for my eye doctor because she’s awesome ;). I have 48 grams of singles on the 1st bobbin, and I weighed out 48 grams of roving to spin for the 2nd bobbin. I weighed the bobbins a few years ago and wrote the weight of the bobbin on the side in magic marker, that way I can just weigh the bobbin filled with singles and then subtract the weight of the bobbin from the final weight and I will have the weight of the singles. Who knew math would actually come in handy and the high school math teacher was actually right! Kudos to all my math teachers :). Hopefully that will make it so I don’t have a lot of left over singles on one of the bobbins when the two bobbins are plied together. That will also depend on if I get the singles similar in diameter (thin-ness or thickness). We will see. I think this will be maybe a heavy sport weight, but less than DK (double knit weight).

Tour de Fleece Days 1 -4

/ LDSVenus / 4 Comments

The first picture is day 1 and 2, tho some of that was already on the bobbin :P. The 2nd picture is day 3 and 4. I have been spinning about 30 minutes a day, I should be finished with this bobbin and ready to start the 2nd bobbin tomorrow :).