It is almost Tour de Fleece time of year again!  Between 6th July and 28th July when the Tour de France cycling race is happening, spinners are spinning yarn!  On the cyclists rest days (16th and 22nd) the spinners rest, on the most challenging mountain days of the race (18th and 26th) the spinners tackle their own personal spinning challenge.  Then the rest of the days the spinners spin yarn, be it 5 minutes a day or hours per day.

Last year I joined TeamCKT which is the team of Laura Cameron from The Corner of Knit and Tea podcast and I am joining it again this year.  I am double dipping this year, as I am also joining TeamBabblingPurls which is a team for both Grace O’Neill (from Babbles Travelling Yarns) and Jade from the Sew Perfect Purls podcasts.  (Double dipping is allowed.)

My bobbins and spindles are empty, my Ashford Traditional spinning wheel is oiled (and polished) and my fibre is prepped!

For the challenge days I am thinking …on the 16th try to spin plant fibre and on the other day I thought I was going to be on a plane and would be able to try spinning on it, but now realise my flight is the day before.  So I thought on the 26th for a challenge I will try to teach either my sister, nephew or niece to spin on my Turkish spindle.

I had some difficulty limiting my choices of what to spin.  I have a lot of fibre to choose from! 

So here’s my rough plan:

1. Practice spinning long draw with the rolags which are shades of grey with the occasional hint of yellow and some nylon sparkle.
2. Spin 300g (12oz) of the BFL (66.6%) / Shetland (33.3%) fibre from Sky Blue.  I haven’t yet decided on yarn weight I’m after!  Perhaps DK or Worsted Weight.  This will be a traditional 3 ply.  I need to make up a sample card to help keep my spinning even.
3. Teach with some of the tropical blend on my Turkish Spindle.
4. Spin some some cotton punis on the 18th.
5. Spin at least 30 mins a day.

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