On Your Mark...Get Set

This year's Tour de Fleece starts this Saturday, July 5th and runs through July 27th.  If you are not familiar with it, the Tour de Fleece (TdF) is a global Spin-Along (SAL) held in tandem with the Tour de France cycling competition.  While the cyclists race through France, we spin along with them in an effort to meet our individual goals. Our goals can range from just learning to spin, or spinning a new fiber, spinning down a certain amount of stash or learning a new technique, to spinning a whole fleece - whatever is challenging to us.

I considered joining several teams this year, Wildcard and Official, as I usually do, but eventually decided to keep it to just one team: the Diagon Alley Marauders from the Hogwarts at Ravelry group (and not just because I'm the team captain this year).

My TdF goal is simply to spin down as much stash as I can.  That includes finishing up old SWIPs and starting new ones. For the new, I'm still in the process of prepping fleece, and also deciding which commercially prepped fiber bumps to spin. I love spinning my natural color fleeces, but I need some color to break up the monotony. They're all so pretty though, it's hard to choose.  So I'm thinking maybe I'll go deep stash diving and pull out some of my really early purchases.  Age before beauty I guess. LOL

What I have decided on so far:

(1) five ounces of hand combed Finn/Lincoln cross (adult) to be spun into 3ply sock yarn, one singles spun 's' & two singles spun 'z', plied 's'.

(2) finish plying up (2x2 cable yarn) the remaining Rambouillet/Montedale cross singles (yes, just when I thought I was done with this I found more hiding in a corner).

(3) if I haven't already, finish flicking & combing the Shetland Moorit fleece, then finish spinning.

(4) if I can find it, finish spinning that soysilk/wool blend in Promise colorway that I started in 2012.

Add in three or four more and I'll make a decent little dent in my stash. I would like to spin a minimum of 24 ounces (680 grams) but I don't intend to race through my spinning and sacrifice quality of spinning for quantity spun. That's why my goal is just to spin as much as I can. If I make or surpass 24 doesn't really matter. I'll be happy with whatever yardage I can get to add to my StashDash2014 total.