Are you ready for the Tour de Fleece?

Good morning, and happy Sunday! Yep, Sunday. I haven’t done a significant amount of spinning since long before the Men’s Spring Knitting Retreat. The rainbow colored fiber from Mad Color Fiber Arts that I finished in March was probably the last wheel spun yarn I made. Since then I have done a little bit of supported spindle spinning, mostly at the retreat. We have had quite a busy spring in this house, and I have been spending a lot of my time on other non fiber related projects.

My rigid heddle loom has been getting some use lately though. I warped it with some beautiful yellow sock yarn that I got at the Lion Brand Yarn Studio in NYC back in February, and the weft is a beautiful yellow and orange variegated sock yarn from Raggedy Cat .

Variegated yarns do really fun things when used as either the warp or weft in a plain weave project. As a warp, the colors can create interesting striping effects throughout the length of your project, depending on how long each section of color is in the yarn. The colors in the Raggedy Cat yarn are relatively short, and I thought it might be better suited as the weft this time. I couldn’t be more pleased with how this scarf project is coming out. Where I would usually spend 15 to 20 minutes every morning before work spinning, I have been spending that time weaving instead.

Next weekend I will be starting a new spinning project for Team Spinning Bunny in the 2017 Tour de Fleece. If your’re not familiar with the Tour de Fleece, check out the Tour de Fleece group on Ravelry.

Every year for the Tour, Susan of Susan’s Spinning Bunny comes up with a special colorway for the team. This year’s colorway is Razzle Berries Dark and Rich . I chose the colorway on the Silkino (merino and silk) fiber, and it’s absolutely gorgeous.

Our team has a few requirements. You must spin Susan’s fiber on the wheel or spindle of your choice, or any other fiber on one of Jim’s beautiful spindles or, if you’re lucky to have one, his very limited Hilltopper spinning wheels. Although the page it still up, I think he might have stopped making them. If you’re interested though, reach out to him or Susan to ask about their availability. I am lucky to have one, as well as a good number of Jim’s suspended and supported spindles. Jim makes spindles in a variety of woods, some pretty exotic, that are not only beautiful to look at, but perform beautifully too.

This year, in addition to Susan’s special colorway, I am going to continue spinning some of the baby camel on my Tibetan and Russian supported spindles from Jim. That may be it. I have bitten off more than I can chew as far as how much I intended to spin in past Tours. If I can get through the Razzle Berries, I have a lot more of Susan’s fiber to choose from to get me through to the end of Tour if I have time.

In the coming week, I will try to tidy up all of my old posts from past Tours that I have participated in. I love revisiting old posts as I get them ready to republish here as it gives me the opportunity to edit them as well as remind me of the things I have done. Keep an eye out for them.

That’s all for today. I have a ton of outside work to catch up on and my mother in law arrived yesterday from Florida for a visit, so I’m looking forward to spending time with her while she’s here.