Tour de Fleece 2022

I guess you could say I'm in!

The complicating factor with participating this year is that for an entire week of the tour I will be away from my wheels.  My solution is to bring a spindle with me, but I think that will make that a challenge week!  I've done very little with spindle spinning since getting my wheels and I could use a little time improving my spindle spinning technique.

Otherwise, my main goal is just to participate by spinning along.

I've been working on a couple big spins for the last few months.  On Wednesday of this week I finished spinning a fleece I bought in April and have been spinning for pretty much all of May and June.  Last night I finished spinning singles of the Corriedale wool that has been a thorn in my side since 2019.  That may be a little dramatic, but...

Anyway, part of my official TdF goal is to ply those singles and be done with the Corriedale spin. 

Otherwise everything is just for fun.  No specific time, yardage, or stash reduction goals.  I would like to take TdF as an opportunity to play around with the superflyer for my Kiwi and try out some art yarn techniques I just haven't made time for yet/

I kicked TdF off this morning with a braid of Superfine Merino from Three Waters Farm.  This was the June club colorway "One Bright Poppy.."  I'm spinning it on the Flatiron with a short forward draft and have the wheel set up in double drive on the 10.4:1 ratio.  This will be a 2-ply yarn.  I split the braid in half lengthwise and then split it in thirds so that I can make the colors repeat in the same sequence.  I plan on doing some color matching when I ply.

I started in on plying that Corriedale on the Kiwi this morning as well.

Mid-Way 2022 Check In

Repeating what I did at the end of March/beginning of April, here is a look at Quarter 2 and my year-long goals.

1. Knit a sweater from my 2021 Jacob fleece. ✅ 
2. I still want to learn to do brioche.  I plan to knit Andrea Mowry's Harlow Worsted as a learning project.  In progress - I started and frogged so no FO yet, but I have begun to learn the technique.
3. Socks are still going to be one of those things I always have going. Yeah, in progress because it is never ending.
4. Specifically, this year I would like to keep using my sock yarn stash.  I have some skeins I would like to get knit up, but I would also like to play around with scrappy socks and holding yarn double for thicker (and quicker!) socks.  In progress/not started.  I have been knitting with stashed sock yarn, but I haven't knit any scrappy or yarn-held-double socks.  I did knit mittens with sock yarn stash scraps.
5. At the moment I have 3 sweaters going.  I would like to finish all of them, as well as that Jacob sweater I will be starting soon. ✅ 
6. I would like to make a colorful sweater from handspun as well.  ✅
7. I would like to play with my blending board a lot more.  I would really like to blend up enough for a sweater. ✅ 
8. Work on Corriedale fleece.  In progress.  The wool is processed and spun into singles.  I'm starting plying today.  I also saved the clean combing waste for blending, but that is more of a byproduct and doesn't really count here.
9. With the exception of my mill ends/add ins/sample fiber stash that I have for blending, I would like to spin up my existing fiber.  ✅  I have a new fiber stash now, but everything I have now is from May 2022 or later
10. Knitting the 2021 Selection Box from The Woolly Thistle yarns.  In progress.  I have knit a hat with 4 of the skeins,, I knit a cowl with 2 of the skeins plus one from stash, 3 more to go. 

So some of this didn't change from Q1, but I did check three more things off my list and made progress on and made progress on at least 4 more.  The only thing I haven't done anything with this last quarter is working on the brioche.