Part Deux - Tour de Fleece 2010

Here tis, the end of the race. All in all, the challenge to myself was incredibly helpful and fulfilling as I really concentrated on my consistency and learned to chain ply (Navajo Ply) better. My last two skeins of two ply yarns also were more balanced they my two plies have been in the past. So little by slow, I am getting better at this still new to me pleasure. I have only be spinning with this wheel for little over a year.

There are a few stray pictures that need to be rounded up as yet to complete the collection of what I did spin-wise this month during the Tour de France. There are also 2 skeins of 80/20 merino/silk drying and therefore still setting twist that I need to photograph as well.

I also have started spinning some cinnamon alpaca. This may be the last alpaca I ever spin as it is the grubbiest fiber I have ever spun. Not as dirty as the last alpaca I spun back in the Fall, but full of vegetable matter (VM) and foxtails. It's going to take me ages to get it all out before I can spin it, if I continue to hand card it. Going to check into borrowing a drum carder tomorrow in hopes of speeding that process up.

Samhain Supper or Enough Already

A while back I went to Blazer's in Aurora to do some shopping with my friend Katte Beth. She was all excited about this place and wanted to show it off to me. We went on a Sunday morning, only to discover that the store was closing THAT day for a 2-3 month remodel. As, I was also expected to be somewhere that afternoon, we did a "quick" run through the store and scooped up what goodies were left to find. The store was pretty well gutted of the good stuff due to EVERYTHING being 1/2 price. I did buy a little over a $100.00 worth of pastas, teas, oils, balsamic vinegar and crackers for which I paid a grand total of $50.00. As always, more fun is to be had with the adventure that is Katte Beth, thanks, grrly!

One of the pastas I purchased that day was a black linguine made from squid ink. Squid ink, you say, ewwww! Not! It was for colour only, not for flavour. I saw it and said to myself, hmmmm? Then I thought, All Hallows Eve is coming and put it in my basket... I also picked up some Pesto and Sun-Dried Tomato pastas at the same time...

One of the foodie blogs or some such (could have found it through TipNut), that I read had a recipe for a Creamy Pumpkin Sauce. I looked over the ingredients and thought to myself, yum! Then I thought of the black linguine and wallah, Samhain Supper was born... I used this recipe as the basis, Creamy Pumpkin Sauce. As Erin responds badly to pork and turkey, I used sweet Italian chicken sausage instead of the one called for. She also isn't that big a fan of sage so I substituted fresh rosemary for it. It was still yummy. One should, in my opinion, make any recipe to your own taste and with the ingredients that suit you best.

The enough already is for the friends that have been bugging me for the recipe for the sauce and my Golden Yam Waffles...

As to the rest of the weekend. I did a fair amount of spinning. I finished the DIRTY brown alpaca which I ended up with 1200 feet of, so will likely will get about 300 yards of 2 ply. I found that it was easier to spin if I didn't comb it out and just spun the locks. However, I ended up with a lap full of vegetable matter (VM) and soil and more was released when I ran it off my bobbin thru the yardage counter. Ick!


The light specks you see on the brown yarn are the VM that still hadn't gotten removed as yet. When I boil it to set the twist after plying, most of it and the soil will finally go away, but I suspect that I will be picking VM out as I knit with the finished yarn. Will keep you posted on that.

I also spun up the hand dyed watermelon colours of Blue Faced Leicester (BFL) from which I got about 420 yards. I think I will ply it with a creamy white. I had never spun BFL before, it's loverly to work with.



I also spun up some merino pencil roving in very pretty colours. Pencil roving had been giving me fits before when I tried to spin with it, so it was an exercise in prevailing over a challenge. The last time I tried to spin some, I ended up having to have it combed into rolags to spin from. This time I was determined to get it to spin in it's stripy way and surprisingly it didn't fight me back and the effort was a much more successful. Yea! for me! I will probably ply this with some black after I find a source for it and get it spun up. I think that likely will mean a field trip to Gypsy Wools in Boulder for some black merino fiber. Sad for me, not!

Again, I have to thank my spinning teacher, Darla for all of her help in getting me to this point. Also, for giving me the confidence to KEEP trying till I get where I want to be in my spinning efforts. Thanks again so much, you are an awesome addition to my life.

Finished Goddess Postcard - Creative Every Day

Here's the finished postcard that the beginning of is photographed in the previous post. I think it turned out pretty well.

It is made from green commercial wool, green and taupe hand dyed silk top and purple/green and orange/yellow hand dyed alpaca, which were then needle felted onto a purplely grey wool felt background.

I then trimmed it and glued it to a watercolour post card backing. It may go out into the world as a Random Act of Kindness to one of my friends. Who knows where it will land?