Good Things: Tour de Fleece

It’s always important to balance the hard discussions with some easier ones, so let’s talk about the Tour de Fleece! After all, fibre arts are the biggest part of most of my days – I love making beautiful things, and encouraging others to make beautiful things with whatever talents they may have, too!

I love the Tour. It’s a chance to focus on spinning (or other fibre arts, but I generally go with the spinning) – which for me means getting some extra rest time in, which I really need after such a busy June. My goal this year is to spin a kilogram of Frazzlebatts during the Tour, which started June 29 and ends July 21.

So far, I have done 400 grams – I kind of got on a roll yesterday and filled two bobbins on the CPW, I was in a wheel spinning kind of mood. I finished off all the batts I’d originally carded up, then went upstairs and made more! Having a Batt Bar in your house is a wonderful thing, really.

I did a bunch of this blue stuff: it’s a mix of fibres from the stash and had some really textured stuff in there, so it came out a bit on the hairy side when it was spun. I think it’ll weave up into something neat though, maybe a bag or a tablet case type thing.

Here’s all that blue, wound into balls, plus the big fuzzy pink and purple batt all spun up:

Then I had two smaller batts made from some really soft something or other found in the stash (it might be alpaca) blended with some mohair locks and some Corriedale. There are two different batts here, I just spun them one after another and squashed them both onto the bobbin, then wound off into a ball – you can see the colour change in the middle.

Then I had to card up more batts … I’m in a pink and purple kinda mood, mostly, but I got some really nice new green shades for the Batt Bar so I had to try those out as well:

And I couldn’t resist the sparkly purple one, so it got spun up too!

Today I think I’m gonna be doing some more knitting: I’m working on a vest design with some yarn I got at Fibre Week from the lovely people at Riverstone Yarns: it’s their gorgeous mohair blend, and the colours are just amazing! I should have something photographable by tomorrow.

It’s a lovely, sunny, breezy day here at Apple Jack Creek – I hope you are having a beautiful day where you are, too!