Spinning

Tour de Fleece day 9

/ LDSVenus / 4 Comments

Day 9, finished the first bobbin! It looks a lot more full in real life than in the picture but maybe a bobbin with the same amount of singles will fit when plied, tho I have my doubts.

I didn’t start the new bobbin but it is on there ready to start spinning tomorrow since I will be making up time for my lack of spinning time the 6th day. I don’t care tho tomorrow shouldn’t be too busy, laundry day and maybe an errand. I may not post tomorrow tho unless I have a substantial amount of spinning to show :P.

Our city has been doing their “work” on the roads, and oh my gosh you almost need a map to see where you can go and where you need to avoid, and how the heck you are suppose to get to your destination, sigh. I guess it’s all cities but so annoying, altho not quite as annoying as the pot holes they are fixing by repaving, some are almost big enough to swallow your car lol.

Tour de Fleece day 8

/ LDSVenus / 3 Comments

Ok, I did spin on day 7, just didn’t post because I didn’t spin much, guess I will be spinning on their rest day on the 10th :P. I have a little bit more to spin on this first bobbin, then I will start the 2nd bobbin. If I have weighed the fiber out correctly and my spinning is consistent, my 2nd bobbin should be equally as full and that, I think, will be a problem when I ply it on the 3rd bobbin, because plying two near full bobbins will be too much yarn to fit on it. I guess that will mean 2 skeins, one larger than the other. I might just have to invest in a large bobbin and the large flyer that goes with it. Won’t be cheap, it won’t be here for this year’s Tour de Fleece and I don’t spin a lot of bulky type of yarns but if I am going to do it occasionally it’s best to have one.

Tour de Fleece Day 4 – Spinning the Very Berry Color Pop

/ LDSVenus

This is the singles I finished so I could start this year’s Tour de Fleece. Fractal spins are fun and look cool when they are done, just no idea what I would knit it into. Maybe it’s just meant to look at and enjoy :).

Here is my progress with the Very Berry Color Pop (South American wool with viscose). I am really enjoying this spin, it’s a bit thicker than my normal spin because of the viscose bits in it but I am loving the tweedy slubby look. I can hardly wait to see what the plied yarn will look like.

Tour de Fleece Day 2

/ LDSVenus / 5 Comments

I chose the South American wool with viscose bits, Very Berry color pop for my first start to finish project. It’s a different spin as it has all those viscose bits in it so it will be a thicker yarn and a little slubby but it’s pretty. I’m not use to spinning a slubby yarn so it should be a fun and because it’s thicker, a faster spin. It’s looking pretty so far :).

Tour de Fleece Day 1 – Finishing Up What’s on My Wheel first.

/ LDSVenus / 7 Comments

The picture on the right was my 2nd project for last year’s Tour de Fleece, lol, yes I just finished it today, the picture on the left. It was a fractal spin and fractal spins are fun and pretty. I still have to wind it off on my niddy noddy, skein it and wash it, then when it’s dry I’ll take a picture of the skein :). Plying is always my nemesis it takes several hrs to ply the 2 singles together and sitting for that long is not my thing, but I have a really comfortable chair this year that a friend gave me, very cushy :). Tomorrow after winding this one off I will start spinning my new fiber. 🙂

Tour de Fleece 2023

/ LDSVenus / 6 Comments

It’s Tour de Fleece time again! It is from July 1st through July 23, we spin each day the bikers are riding on the Tour de France. We just choose how much time we’ve decided we are going to spin each day they ride, 15 min or an hr, it’s up to us, with days off when they take their rest days off.

Above are the fibers I’ve chosen. I doubt I will get through them all as I have a tiny bit to finish already on my wheel and then to ply that, so that should be my first day. The first one is a Cormo and Rambouillet cross (brown) from SheepSymphony on Etsy, I bought a 2.34 lb processed fleece – very good and soft stuff, and the price was amazing!!!! The one next to it is fiber I bought from Camaj Fiber Arts, it is a beautiful tweed called Very Berry Color Pop, it is South American Wool & Viscose bits Blend combed top. The one behind it is also from Camaj Fiber Arts another tweed called Pop Rock (with blue, red, orange, green and purple (so pretty!) also South American Wool and Viscose bits blend top. Those colorful bits will sure pop on there, those tweed fibers are going to make beautiful yarn!!

Flax Baby Sweater Done :)

/ LDSVenus / 10 Comments

I’ve been working on this Flax baby sweater for a while, have been a bit unmotivated for a bit with my knitting and spinning, but working on that. The baby is born and my friend sent me a picture, he’s cute as a button. He will enjoy this this fall and winter. 🙂

I’ve started another baby sweater for a baby that has already arrived as well, but it’s too hot for a sweater so I try not to feel too bad that it’s not very far along at the moment, but she will enjoy it this fall and winter as well. I’ll post more about the pattern and yarn and my start on another day.

On the 1st of July starts the Tour de Fleece :). I will try to spin a little bit everyday that the bikers from the Tour de France ride. But I’m not gonna beat myself up if I miss a day or two, but gonna work on it. I’ll post on Saturday with some pictures of fiber I am going to spin :).

Hope everyone is doing well!

2nd Fiber Festival

/ LDSVenus / 7 Comments

The pictures are so much better on my new phone!! I forgot to take pictures at the fiber festival again, :/ sorry. I also forgot to get pictures of several skeins of yarn I bought for my son to make socks on his sock knitting machine for his spouse Ev, who picked out the skeins of yarn for his socks :), and I bought some roving for my son to spin on his new E6 electric spinning wheel, was too exciting to remember some things, like taking pictures :p. I bought 2 needle felted zipper decorated pieces of art, but yeah, I forgot to get a picture of one of them before I gifted it, it was a beautiful nativity for a friend who collects nativity deco for her Christmas tree. The first picture is one of the needle felted zipper decorated pins I bought for myself, because I love sheep, I didn’t see an alpaca, but I love all things I can spin :).

The 2nd picture is a beautiful tweed braid of roving that I bought to spin, I love the muted colors!!! This will be fun to spin and knit up!

The 3rd picture is from a class my son signed me up at for the fiber festival, a needle felting class for felted pictures. It was so awesome, but I am going to need to practice a whole lot more, but it was fun!

I love Spring but I always forget at the front part it’s back and forth between cooler weather and warmer weather and all the storms and rain. But that is ok, it’s not below 0 and it’s not snow anymore!! I hope everyone is enjoying their weather where ever you are. 🙂

Fiber Festival!

/ LDSVenus / 7 Comments

I got to go to a fiber festival in Iowa City with my son and his spouse (they sell their alpaca fiber and yarn there each year). It was so fun. In the first picture I bought a yarn bowl , (a vendor had some beautiful hand crafted pottery ones there but since I don’t use them very often I didn’t want to spend $60 on one, so I bought a a plastic one that will still serve it’s purpose. I might get one at a later date, they were beautiful!), some spinning oil for my wheels and a machine embroidered lap cloth for when I am spinning. The lap cloth helps you keep the fiber off your clothes but it’s also wonderful if you are spinning dark fiber to have a light back ground so you can see it better. I also have a less fancy one that a friend made for me that I use that also has a dark back ground on the other side for when you are spinning light colored fiber, and I love it. I bought a really pretty hand dyed skein of yarn, that I am not sure what to do with it yet, it’s a fingering weight, so maybe a pair of socks or fingerless mitts? I found and bought this lovely smelling soap and hand cream that is made from goats milk and the hand cream felt so nice on my hands, am looking forward to using the soaps. I brought home some of my son’s yarn and loose spinning fiber. All of the alpaca is soft, but the black fiber is cria (baby alpaca) and oh my it’s extra soft, I can hardly wait to spin it up. I have started another cabled hat, love the feel of the alpaca yarn when I’m knitting. I’m using a lighter shade of brown (the one in the yarn bowl pictured above, the picture looks a bit darker than the shade of brown of the yarn in rl) so the cables will show better. And my son took me over to look at a different vendor’s hand crafted diz’s (for my spinning). They were made of brass, I hemmed and hawed over which one I wanted, they were all beautiful, and when I went to pay for it my son said nope, I got it mom. So I have this beautiful brass hand made diz as a gift from my son and his spouse. How lucky can a mom get. 🙂

There will be another fiber festival that they sell toward the end of this month and I will get to go to that one too!! I’ll post about it when we get back from that one. I did forget to take pictures yesterday, but I’ll try to get a few pictures from this coming one.

Hope everyone in the mid-west is enjoying the warmer weather this year, sorry that we in the mid-west have spread around our normally ugly winter weather to other states this year and that we got milder weather, nope not sorry :P.

Honey Isn’t Necessarily Healthy and Update on TdF 2nd spin

/ LDSVenus

This 2 lb plastic (thank goodness) jar of honey caused me to be unable to spin for a bit, hopefully soon I can go back to spinning. You know the instant you do something and you know it won’t turn out right and you get that flash of what could happen and you quickly respond to it? Well yeah, that is what I did. I had set this jar of honey close to the edge of the counter and turned around and a pot holder I had in my hand caught it and off it went, my mind in that instant just saw honey all over the floor and so naturally I stuck my foot out to buffer the fall, Oh My, wrong choice, it hit the top of my foot and ouchie!! Went to get an x-ray a few days later when the bruise wasn’t looking better, but no fractured bones, just lots of soft tissue damage. Lesson learned, let the jar fall next time, it was plastic, it wouldn’t have broken. Our reactions are sometimes too fast for our own good, but then again most of the time that’s a good thing.

Next picture; Before I hurt my foot, this is as far as I got almost 3 weeks ago on the spin of my 2nd Tour de Fleece skein, almost done with the 1st bobbin. Hopefully will finish that soon and I can begin the 2nd bobbin.

I have been working on my Hats for Warmth project (because I can sit with my feet up and not feel guilty :P), but I need to speed that up, fall is almost here and winter will soon follow!!!

Hope you all are working on things you love and that I haven’t cursed you with “Murphy” by talking about it, tho if he could find another person to irritate I can’t say I would mind a bit, tho I hope it’s not you :P.