Tour de Fleece (or don't talk to me I'm spinning)

When my lovely friend and über expert spinner Porpoisefur asked for folk to join her Tour de Fleece team I hesitated.  I became aware of this world wide spinning event where spinners form teams to spin during The Tour de France and tot up the spinning miles (watching the cycling while spinning is optional) from chat on Ravelry last year but felt far too much of a newbie spinner to think of joining in

After being reassured that entry to the team is at all levels, that everyone will improve by joining in and all we had to do was commit to two things,

• to spin every day the cyclists are racing
• to decide on a set of personal goals 

and

• share experiences on Ravelry... 

Oh, that's three.

I joined in.  My goal is simply to spin a consistently fine thread that when plyed is knitable, I wanted to make something particularly lovely with this fibre that I bought at WonderWool.

BFL in Alma Tadema colour-way

But there are always un intended consequences.  For the first few days I persevered with my vintage Lendrum.  Despite greasing every moving part I could get access to (as advised by a very helpful lady I met in a yarn store one day). The yarn I produced was very lumpy

Mixed and unknown (to me) fibres

Perhaps it's the fibre and I'm not yet ready for mixed fibres, so I bought this from Porpoisefur, our lovely leader 

Falkland (lower left) Romney (top) Shetland (lower right)

Then I went away for a few days and drop spindling was the only option.  I got on a lot better, this is more fibre from Porpoisefur, baby alpaca in Leaf Peepers colour-way

But there was still the cranky old Lendrum skulking in the corner of my studio that simply would not be mastered.  So I bought a new wheel.  And not just any wheel but a Schacht Matchless.   A rather big investment but it is beautiful.  I nearly said she is beautiful despite not liking anthropomorphism, it almost felt right to give my wonderful new wheel a human personality

I would love to say I am now spinning a fine thread but that will still take time and the yarn is still rather organic.

corriedale

But by the end of July I have high hopes I shall be producing some very respectable knit-worthy yarn

xx

c

The Lendrum and a plea for help

I have signed up for an entirely new experience, I am going to learn to spin and this is my new baby

This is one of my mother's wheels, the other a traditional Ashford sits in my sister-in-law's dinning room waiting for her to learn too.  When my mother was alive I was not particularly interested in spinning, I did have a go one day and was rather impressed that Mum could spin but I preferred the local yarn shop experience of wandering the shelves marvelling at the colours and feeling the textures.  But it seems to me that if you are a yarn junkie then one day you have to face up to the ultimate fibre experience - spinning

Until last evening I did not even know what sort of wheel it was - all was revealed by scrolling through Google images of wheels until I found one that looked similar to mine and by following the links I am fairly confident it is a Lendrum.  But that is all I know and before I take my wheel to my first spinning class I would be so very grateful if any of you lovely readers of my blog could help me a little.

The wheels I found by my Google search seemed to have two pedals - mine has one, what is the difference?

I found one YouTube clip that showed the 'top bit' had less hooks than I have here - are all these used when threading the lead yarn?

Have I got the back knob in the right place (It had some yarn wound around it which seems to help it to lock in place)

And - is there a list somewhere of what all the parts are called?  Can I buy a hookey thing somewhere or do people improvise with a piece of wire?  I think this hook is the only bit missing, what do you think?

Finally are there any YouTube films that you would recommend for me to learn a bit more before I get to my lesson?

I'm itching to begin, so if anyone could help, I would be ever-so happy.  I have this basket of billowy alpaca

And this bowl of creamy BFL - all ready to go

xx

c

Knitty dilemma

Do you ever find it hard to decide whether a Finished Object is a triumph or a disaster?  I might have mentioned slouchy hats made from sparkly yarn last week; about all the cooing over the idea at knitting group and the rushing out to get yarn.  Even after some mods (tighter here, bigger there....) the two hats took me just two evenings to make.  The yarn is certainly very pretty

The sparkly bits (silver sequins) pop out just a little, the colours are perfect and yarn (despite my prejudice against synthetic fibre) is soft with just the right amount of fluffiness.  BUT it was a bit of a different story when I showed them to Dear Daughters 1&2. There were hoots of derision and gales of laughter.

DD1 said they reminded her of hats worn to cover hair loss, worse DD2 said they were like something Nora Batty would wear.  The little Model put one on her daddy's head and the other on Little Brother.  LB loved playing peek a boo, the hat came down to his shoulders.

Perhaps I need a rethink...  But I have so much to do.  There is this quilt

Well not actually this quilt.  This is the prototype/pattern for the main event, and is only 50cm square, I wanted to see how piece the colours together and whether they went with the sample piece of wall paper (OK I think)

The main event has reached this stage

So you can see I am a bit pressed for time but the question is what to do with the hats?  They were destined for non-knitting-friends.  Now I know that even if they would never dream of actually wearing the item, knitters would look at the soul of the FO.  I'm not saying that NKF's don't have soul - they do, in buckets but knitters can go a bit off piste about some things that NKs find it hard to grasp. 

For instance all knitters are going to understand AlliDecks need to travel halfway across the globe with two spinning wheels and more than one packing case of yarn.  Or the raptures we can go into when there is the mention of Brittany needles or Yarn from Blue Faced Leicester Sheep but we don't expect others to do the same.  I might have raised the bar a little too high last year with cashmere gloves - but what do you think?  Give or keep as dog walking hats? (if I ever have a dog!)

xx

C