Tour de Fleece 2019

This year Tour de Fleece ran July 6-July 28. 

I decided I was going to spin up some foxglove carded corriedale dark brown fiber I have had since January 2014. I had started spinning it up last year, I think.  Maybe even before then, but then set the spinning wheel to the side and focused on other things. 

I purchased 24 ounces of fiber, with the intent of spinning enough yarn to make a sweater. 

Well ... I'm not even close with yardage for a sweater. That's all right.  I learned a LOT during this tour. 

I watched a lot of spinning classes on Bluprint and read old Ply magazines. 

Something clicked during all this reading and spinning I was doing; I understand some spinning techniques and methods *so* much better. 

The Bluprint classes I watched where taught by Jacey Boggs and Amy King.  After viewing the classes I now have the knowledge to tell you how I spun this fiber. 

It was spun with short draw.  I bounced back and forth between short forward and short backward.  Short backward seems to be my go-to method.  Since it was a carded prep, I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's a woolen yarn. I did a wraps per inch and it is a chunky weight. The different areas I checked had either 7 or 8 WPI. Final yardage was over 300 yards. 

Now, here's the kicker.  I didn't spin the full 24 ounces. Some of my yarn went to the bunnies when they started having babies.  I gave both of them fiber so they could use it for their nests and keep the babies warm.  I still don't know if I have a skein of this wool floating around in my stash. 

What's not including in this weight is the small amount of yarn that I had left over when I finished two-plying my singles. So I either gave the bunnies a lot more fiber than I realized, or I really do have a loose skein of this fiber somewhere in the yarn stash. 

I also hand plied for the very first time, so I wouldn't lose that little bit of yarn at the very end.  I followed the instructions over on Knitty. It was easier than expected. Naturally I had a bit of a hard time with it I managed to not keep enough yarn out on my pinky. I had to dig it out a little bit and I had some twist up that I had to untangle.  I'm glad to have learned about this method and Andean plying.  I don't know when I'll try Andean plying. 

Anywho, after plying and skeining up my corriedale I was geeked to spin more fiber right away.  I started spinning some fiber that has been in stash for close to 10 years.  I had mentioned this a few blog posts ago.  It is some superwash wool top. It has such a wonderful prep.  

I finished a bobbin last night.  

I'm so pleased with it.  

I'm really hoping I have enough of this fiber to fill one more bobbin.  If so, then my plan is to ply them together and try a pair of toe up socks for myself.  I'm debating on dyeing them or not.  I'm worried I'll do something to mess the yarn up. I've never dyed hand spun before.