Tour de Fleece Report #2

In spite of the boisterous green beans, rowdy cucumbers and sassy sweet basil that have been spilling out of the garden lately, I'm still keeping to my goal of at least 30 minutes spinning each day of the Tour de France. For the past ten days, I've actually spun at least 35 minutes per day. My total number of spinning minutes now stands at 910, a tad over 15 hours. In keeping with the spirit of the bike ride, I've done a couple of rides of my own with spindle and fiber stashed in a bike pack.

Only about a 10 inch length of the bamboo roving remains to be spun. I hope to finish that today, then get it plied tomorrow. It's lovely fiber, and I've worked out some techniques for better control and consistent yarn. But I've never come to love the actual spinning of it, and luckily, there is no more bamboo in my fiber stash.

I've also made headway on my spindle spinning project, the golden merino/tencel blend roving. This was 8 ounces of fiber which I split in half. My intention for this project is to spindle spin each half, making two roughly equal balls of single strand yarn which I'll then ply together. Monday evening I finished spinning the first 4 ounces. Although there's still a lot of spinning ahead on this project, getting through that first 4 ounces feels like an accomplishment. By the way, this fiber is pure pleasure to spin, unlike some others... It gets smashed into my backpack or bike pack on a daily basis, yet is always easy to fluff up a bit and get right to the spinning.

So, only five more Tour days left. Good luck to all you Tour de Fleece participants. I wouldn't object to another rainy day, another valid excuse to stay inside and spin. Here's a final shot of the 4 ounce ball of merino/tencel with ... well, you know...