Sunday, July 14, 2013

Who else is doing the TDF?

If i've been absent lately, its because I've been spinning.

The Tour de Fleece is a yearly spin along event that coincides with the Tour de France bike race. This is my first year following along on Ravelry and spinning every day of the race.



It is a whole lot of fun to see all of the interesting techniques, fibers, and anecdotes that the spinners post in the forum, but mostly it has been a great opportunity to gather knowledge in one place and gain inspiration and wisdom.

Today is day 15, and though I have spun nearly 3/4 of a pound of fiber, I just finished plying my first skein of the event.


One of my personal goals was to spin a thick(ish) yarn instead of my default lace weight. Starting with some corriedale wool from Paradise Fibers and fluorescent dyes, I created a 4 oz strip of gradient dyed combed top.



The fiber was then split in half lengthwise and spun into separate singles that were the same color.


I'm starting to suspect that I'm one of those people that has a color palate to my life and there are neons involved. The yarn dyed up to match my  neon rope baskets.

Then the singles were reunited to create one smooth gradient with just a bit of depth from slightly different coloring between the plies.

 
Unfortunately, the nerf football looking cop of plied yarn (yes all 4 oz) did a bunch of damage to the hook of my spindle, causing me to stop a few days for repairs before finishing the yarn.



The end result is surprisingly satisfying for my first go at a full skein of worsted weight 2 ply yarn. I cannot wait to knit it up!!




6 comments:

  1. Love this! I'll have to try that technique sometime!

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  2. Beautiful! Your handspun turned out absolutely wonderful and I can't wait to see how it knits up as well.

    I'm also spinning along with Tour de Fleece. My current project is a 2-ply fractal, fingering weight. Finished with the first ply and halfway through with the second. Maybe I'll get it done before the tour ends.

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  3. Thanks, I might show more pix at some point of how to dye the roving and split it, its a super easy thing unless you tend to spin your singles slightly different from eachother. The results always come out really nicely though when you keep track of your thicknesses.

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  4. It's basically a way to divide fiber to affect the color. First, you would split the roving (top, etc) in half lengthwise. One half would be spun as is and create long blocks of color. The other half would be divided multiple times (at least 3) before spinning to create short, repeating blocks. One plied, some colors will match up and some will barber pole. The end result is usually a combination of stripes and short gradients.

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  5. Yesss, this is the next look I wanted to try making. I will research, Thanks for giving me the correct term to look up.

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