July....

It was an exciting July!  It started off with a simple week of simply getting ready for the next one. followed by shipping my oldest child off to Nova Scotia for Canadian Jamboree 2017.  Let me tell you, as much as I knew he was going to be fine, I found it hard on the heart!  It was a good thing I kept myself busy at the beach with the other two.  They swam, I spun.

I also filled the week slowly pluging away at doing a small remodel on my Daughters room, one step at a time.  Wash walls, mud holes, sand, re mud the deep holes, sand again, wash again.... Shall I go on? It really is a lot of little annoying jobs to do in order to redo a room! It was a success though!  Even if it took 2 weeks.

Of course it was Tour de Fleece, so I could not do some spinning, even if it wasn't the amount of spinning I'd have loved to do.   I had picked up a section of a fleece from Eileen at Fat Ewe Farm, and  spun it up 4 different ways.  The fleece is a Karakul fleece, and as such dual coated.  I spun from the flicked locks she had prepared, carded some of them for a lopi style yarn, and separated the tog from the thel and spun them worsted and woollen as suited them.  There was also the beginning of the 8 oz of Tencel I need to spin as well, but it was one pass on the bobbin by the end the tour. Ah well. Something is better than nothing after all!

The second last weekend brought the annual Art in the Park at Grieg Lake. I had an excellent time!  I offered a drop in class, but there weren't any takers (except the small family that thought they would have gotten off the lake in time for the second one... Unfortunately there wasn't enough time left to squeeze them in...)

Speaking of drop in classes, I've been offering them every Tuesday this summer, and I'll continue into August!  So, if you're in the area between 2 and 4 on Tuesdays, please, drop in! 

As for classes in general I've got a large line up of basic spinning related classes in August.  Please check my Events tab on Facebook! It's posted publicly, so you don't need an account to see them.  If you're interested, feel free to contact me through the blog, or through my website! (which is spinheartspin.ca) 

There is not much for time left in July, summer seems to be slipping away, but hopefully August doesn't take the same pace as July.

~Happily Spinning~

           Kara

A week into Tour de Fleece

I can't believe we are on day 7 of Tour de Fleece already. I feel like I should be farther along then this:

Mind you I spent 10 hours doing this:

And maybe I should be farther along then I am because I took a day to wash fleeces. And I promptly got distracted with the idea of dyeing fibre while I was out there.* But I did take my support spindle out, and got some cotton spun for the Level 4 homework I've got to do as well. So I was still spinning, and it was homework.  Just not the homework I should be working on.

And yes.  I'm timing how long it takes me to do the sock yarn, because my goal for TdF is to get my socks for my Level 3 Master Spinner final project done. Completely done. Spun, dyed and knitted. And it needs to take at least 50 hours. Believe it or not, I've been doing the spinning for 5 hours already, and I'm not even 1/6th of the way through the fibre I need to spin.  It'll be a good solid 6 hours total once I'm done that 1/6th of the fibre.  And if that's the case, I'll need to spin for another 30 hours, and I'd like to be done all that and the dyeing by this coming up friday... 5 days to spin 30 hours. Plus 1 day for plying, which will hopefully only take 4 hours, and 1 day to dye. That's a LOT of spinning in 5 days... 6 hours a day, to be precise...  It kind of makes me nauseated thinking about it. And this is where I think maybe I should change the socks I'm spinning for. Maybe just go for a top down, straight forward plain jane sock, instead of the Little Cable knee highs I'd originally planned to make. 36 hours+10 Hours= 46 hours, and that's so close to 50, that I'm thinking, maybe, I'll be doing just that, minor change in plans. But that's alright. That's how these things go, and it's really good to know that that is how long it takes to make something. Or, I just go with it and get the socks I want, no matter the hours involved... So indecisive!  Oh well. I'm sure I'll make a decision soon, sometime while spinning for 6 hours a day...

~Kara

*I'll get you the drool worthy pictures of the dyed stuff soon. Just a matter of taking the time to take those pictures, which you know I'm in short supply of...

Tour de Fleece - 2012

Is it to early to start thinking about it?  I don't think so!

What I'm thinking about is the two teams I'm going to captain, and my personal goals.  I've got Team Craftster.org and Team Look-in-a-Book.  And of course  I'll be joining Team Hopelessly Overcomitted as well.

Here are my goals:


1) Spin 12 oz of merciboo top into a serious lace weight.  Like,  craykray lace.  Practically sewing thread. or like 2 strands of sewing thread together crazy lace.  Because I'm nuts.  I might even buy the lace flyer for my Traveller...

2) Spin my way through a book.  I'm also heading up the team Team Look in a Book!  Where the goal will be to spin my way through one of my books, but just a sample of each technique... I just have to choose a book...

3) Spin some cotton on my tahkli.  I have ~4 oz of cotton that's been sitting for a long time.  If I get through it, I'll give a go at the camel and yak I have too!

Yup, Hopelessly Overcomitted.

You can find the Tour de Fleece Rav group here.  And the Team Craftster thread on Craftster here.   Of course there will be a thread for both my teams in the Ravelry group, but for now the teams cannot be posted until the moderators clean up the 2011 threads.  Soon, as I see there are just a few more to go through!

What about you?  Are you going to take on the Tour de Fleece this year?

~Kara