Tour de Fleece Part 2

Little late on the TdF update, I know. Got KO'd by a migraine & vertigo for a couple of days, and well, you know how it goes. But I'm still plugging away on the spinning UFOs. I've plied most of the Cold as Ice with only a little bit left to go. So far I have two skeins of 2ply (415 yds total) at a prewash average wpi of 19. Probably get another 50 yds or so out of what's left to ply.



Next up is the Intentions roving which will be another 2ply. I already have one ball of 2 singles waiting to be plied, as well as one "bobbin" of singles waiting for a mate (which I'll spin tonight).



My challenge for the TdF was to learn to n-ply which I'm probably not going to get to during the TdF, but I'll get to it, in a week or so, maybe. I'd be learning just so I know how and not necessarily because I'll use it. It seems more trouble than it's worth to me, and I'm not a stickler on keeping colorways intact. I kinda like the way the colors on predyed roving when handspun blend together.

Tour de Fleece

Okay, Steph, see I'm blogging.

This is my first Tour de Fleece and with all the heat we've had here in NYC I haven't gotten as much done as I'd planned, but I'm still spinning, plying, or doing something connected every day. My goals originally were to finish spinning my UFOs of which I had three in progress: Little Fish colorway from Enchanted Knoll Farms (superwash merino); Cold As Ice colorway (superwash merino) from Crown Mountain Farms; and my most recently started "Connections" colorway from LnV Intentions. When I finished them I would reward myself by starting something new - probably the new (to me) Polworth I got.

Of course, with the way the powers that be like to play with us, as soon as I signed up for the TdF and made all these plans, I was hit by a van while crossing the street (hit & run, the bum) and messed up my wrists (among other things). Fortunately, nothing was broken; I was VERY lucky. But I wasn't sure when my wrists would be healed enough for me to spin, so I adjusted my goals to completing just the two oldest UFOs in case I couldn't start until the 2nd week.

I healed quicker than I thought and was able to start on the first day with everyone else. Here's my Day 8 summary of the first week's progress.

First up was Little Fish of which I only had about an ounce left to spin (I have no idea why I stopped there). Little Fish is pretty shades of blue with a dab of sea green:



But the spindle I needed to finish Little Fish with was already occupied with Intentions, so first I had to finish that, which I did, Day 1:



Day 2's progress:



Days 3&4 were oh so hot, but I finished spinning on 3 and plying on 4, and this is the result:



It's about 187 yards of 2ply. It hasn't been washed yet so I haven't checked the wpi, but it looks like fingering weight (that's a nickel coin not a quarter). I think the earlier skeins fluffed up a lot so it might end up as heavy fingering or dk. We'll see. One UFO down.

Days 5, 6 and 7 have been all about the Cold as Ice. I have about 6-7 ounces to work with including some singles. This will also be a 2ply. I'm starting with this:



And as of this morning I have this done:



I'm spinning on average about an hour and a half a day, sometimes more, so we'll see how far I can get by Wednesday.