Oops!

I can't believe I forgot to post last week.  With all the Tour de Fleece posting on Ravelry it completely slipped my mind - but there wasn't much to see.  Just a very-slooooow-filling-bobbin (darn those big Babe bobbins!). 

In Tour de Fleece news, I'm mostly keeping up with my goals, and occasionally surpassing them.  I'm actually almost finished with the singles, so it is possible I may get this yarn finished!  This is bobbin #2:

Plans are to navajo-ply it, to see how well that works for keeping the different colors from mixing so much.  I had thought I might be able to squeeze spinning this angora/Bombyx silk blend in,

on the Bulky Pinkie, until I test-spun it and discovered how finely it spins - no way that can happen as I think the Tour ends this weekend.


In great wheel news, it made its first public appearance:

It was a big hit, and I noticed some improvements that could be made, such as replacing the maiden upright with a bigger piece of PVC as the current upright is just a bit too flexible.  That will be a project for when the Tour is done though. :-)


And now it's this time!

Tour de Fleece has begun!

I've been doing pretty good so far - my goal is to spin up a 8-ounce merino braid and navajo-ply it before the end of the TdF.

I also want to squeeze in about 2 ounces of an angora/bombyx silk blend that is in the mail to me, but as slow as the merino is going (it's spinning rather fine :-/) I'm not sure I'll be able to.

Anyway, it started Saturday, and each day my goal was to spin for 2 hours, which I exceeded each day.  I'm up to about 3/4 of a bobbin!

 But I'm back to work tomorrow, so I'm going to aim for a 1/2 hour tomorrow as I need to give the great wheel a good test-drive for Thursday's Spin in the Park.  And I need to handcard some wool for the SitP (yuck). 

Yesterday I balanced the great wheel's drive wheel and screwed most of the base together; today I cleaned off most of the printing on the pvc and epoxied the maiden's 'adjusting screw' in.  I noticed the knitting needle I'm using for a spindle was a bit more flexible than I remembered and I may end up doing a quickie replacement with a bamboo needle (thank goodness the whorls aren't glued in place!).

Oh and I finished the Tiger Eye - it is beautiful when out in the sun!  The photo really doesn't show it properly - you can't see the gold Firestar at all which really sets it off.  I'm thinking a shawl - I did remember to count it this time, now I just need to figure out which skeinwinder I have and do some math to see if I have enough yardarge. :-)