A Mermaids Tale - my own blend

I had a crazy idea, quite some time ago now, to spin a yarn that was lime green and turquoise with sparkles and texture going on and to use some of the left over bits and pieces of Twilley's Goldfingering in the yarn if I could as one time I accidentally miscounted and cut far too many lengths for the fringing on one of the shawls and I don't want to just throw it away.  It just so happens to be turquoise.  I get lots of left overs of Goldfingering that can't really be used to make anything much so if I can incorporate it into my own handspun yarns that means less wastage and less going into landfill.

I already had a braid of merino fibre that was mostly lime green with a bit of turquoise but I bought a braid of turquoise merino fibre from the Wool Show that I went to just before Christmas.  I also had some Trilobal Nylon in Colbalt and Tussah Silk in a lime green that I bought in years ago and then some Tussah Silk Noil in pale blue and Hemp in Tropical Green that I dyed myself a couple of years ago.  I put these 6 fibres through my blending hackle in 4 equal lots, one lot for each ply of a skein and I am making 2 skeins.  I can't put the lengths of Twilley's Goldfingering through the blending hackle, they will have to be added in as I go.  My fingers did turn blue though and this was to do with excess dye in the turquoise merino braid, which was also ever so slightly felted in parts, not enough to throw anything away, it did all come loose eventually, but it was harder work putting it on the blending hackle than it should have been.  I didn't have any problems with the other braid of merino, that just pulled apart as easily as would be expected.

The blue goldfingering was already cut into lengths and there was 15g of that.  I then cut the lime green goldfingering into the same sized lengths but because there was only 6g of it I didn't get many pieces so what I did with the lime green was to then cut those lengths in half to give me more instances of when the green will be in the yarn.  I split the number of the lengths of each colour into two, for each skein, and then split them again into two for each ply.  I then put them into pairs of one blue and one green and then when I ran out of green I made pairs of the remaining blue.  In total I had 30 pairs

I worked out that the total length of Goldfingering for each ply was around 60ft.  The first fibre that I dizzed off the blending hackle measured roughly 30ft in length and the ones I dizzed off after that didn't quite measure that length but all I had to do was to work my way along pulling it out a bit thinner to get it up to 30ft in length.  The reason for doing this is that I can then break off lengths that match the longer blue pieces and I can add in the two lengths of Goldfingering, whatever colours they may be, randomly whilst spinning the woolly blend and at least they will then be distributed throughout the yarn as evenly as possible whilst still being random, if that makes sense. 

I did have a little trouble getting the ends of the Goldfingering to embed themselves into the fibres so that they wouldn't stick out or unravel but there were a few times that I had to go back and add a bit of fibre specifically over the join to try to help keep the ends in place.  Plying has helped this even more but I have noticed that there are still one or two that are sticking out.  I will leave them alone until I actually use the finished yarn to make something and assess what is happening with the those ends at the time of making something, because knitting or crocheting may bury any stray ends in anyway.  It was a bit tricky and a little time consuming but I love the finished yarn.

My fingers kept turning blue throughout the spinning process due to the excess dye having not been washed out thoroughly enough from the braid of blue Merino that I purchased.  When I soaked the finished yarn the water turned blue because of this and the finished skeins are now not as bright turquoise as I had hoped for but they are still nice.  I was initially a little disappointed but these things happen sometimes, especially with blues and reds, you can rinse and rinse and rinse and think its all done but then someone with a different water supply with different salts and minerals in the water and a different pH level comes along and puts your fibre or yarn in their water and it can start leaking dye again.  The vendors at the Wool Show had come from all over the UK so this is a possible reason, although it still shouldn't have gotten all over my hands.

So, the finished yarn?  It is Double Knit weight with one skein being 119g/313m and the other being 114g/270m.  The final fibre contents, rounded to the nearest half a percent is 79.5% Merino, 6.5% Metallised Polyester, 3.5% Trilobal Nylon, 3.5% Tussah Silk, 3.5% Hemp, 2% Tussah Silk Noil, 1.5% Viscose.

Spinning some BFL/Mulberry Silk in green-blue

I bought this yarn in April 2020, so about 4 and a half years ago-ish and at a time when I was looking around for alternative fibre suppliers.  It is from an independent spinning fibre retailer who buys in undyed fibre and dyes it themselves and then sells it.  There are a lot of small businesses that do this and whilst they can be pretty they are also quite limited in terms of fibre content as they wouldn't contain any sparkle element or they wouldn't be a solid shade with different colours of texture etc and sometimes the dyer accidentally felts the fibre a little, which is easily done and I've done it a few times myself over the years.  Thankfully that is not the case in this instance, it's so soft.  The original fibre is from John Arbon Textiles.

I wanted to try and keep the variation of colours in the finished yarn as much as possible but I also didn't want it to form splodges of colour so I split it down the length, one for each ply, and spun it over the fold.

For the second single I started spinning from the other end, again over the fold, and this way when I plied the two singles together there was less chance of the same colours coming together all the way through the yarn.  Of course the colours probably do come together at times but hopefully, for the most part, it has barber-pole the colours.

This measures up to 16wpi - Light Fingering Weight and there is 110g/478m.  The fibre content is 80% Bluefaced Leicester, 20% Mulberry Silk

Spinning up "Boat Race" from March 2020

Not letting the grass grow under my feet I am straight on with the next braid of fibre which is from the fibre club back in March 2020.  It is called Boat Race and is 70% Merino, 30% Viscose and is lots of shades of blues and a bit of green, watery colours, but it is put together in such a way that is near impossible to pull all the colours out separately.  I could have perhaps managed to pull a few colours out but I would need really good natural light to do that and at this time of year that just isn't really available so I have had to try to keep the different colours as visible as possible in a different way.

What I actually did was to split it in half and then I just spun from the end without any pre-drafting, as that would encourage the colours to blend, and I tried to follow the strips of colour as it entered the draft zone, so if some dark blue entered the draft zone I would try to follow the thin strip of dark blue fibres for several inches and then latch on to another shade and follow that.  My intention was to make as variegated a yarn as I could and not to allow the colours to blend too much.  I'm not sure I actually managed to achieve that but I tried.

It has spun up to sport weight and there is 100g/300m.

Spinning up "Khadi" from October 2019

This is another of the monthly fibres that I used to subscribe to and I have almost spun up all of the ready-to-spin braids that I have left from this supplier, just a few more to go.  I still have bits and bobs in my "ingredients cupboard" for when I make my own blends, but that is a different matter.

This one is from October 2019 and was based on some Indian cloth called Khadi that was championed by Mahatma Ghandi. 

The fibre looks like its got some different neutral colours in there but this doesn't seem to show in the finished yarn.  It was a very simple, straight-forward spin of splitting it in half, pre-draft the fibre and spin it and then ply the two singles together. 

I had intended to spin this to a thickness that would work with another yarn in my stash but I seem to have missed this by a mile and it has bloomed on washing as well. Oh, well, plenty more wool on the sheep in the field.  This one has spun up to double-knit weight and I have 102g/274m and the fibre content is 50% Merino, 25% Polwarth, 25% Tussah Silk.

Spinning some Romney, Silk & Linen fibre

I bought this fibre nearly 5 years ago and have finally gotten around to spinning it up.  

There are two braids and due to how it has been dyed, in a kind of splodgy fashion, I decided to Fractal spin it, which is a way to split the fibre braid up to manage the colours and amount of times that you split the braid can be adjusted if required.  

A basic Fractal spin is achieved by splitting the braid in half down the entire length and spinning one ply from one of those halves and then for the second ply you would normally split it 4 ways and spin them one after the other, starting from the same end as the 1st ply every time.  

For these braids, due to the colour distribution, I decided to split the first half into two lengths equally down the entire length and then spun them A-B and A-B.  For the second half I split it down the length 6 times and spun A-B, A-B, A-B, A-B, A-B, A-B in a bid to distribute the colours more evenly along the length of the finished yarn.  I worked both braids in this way.

The top bobbin is the second ply, with shorter colour changes.  The bottom bobbin is the first ply with the longer colour changes.

There is some visible colour differences between the two braids but if I use them together in one project I will alternate their use every 2 rows to blend and neutralise those differences.

It has come out to sport weight (12 wpi) with a combined total of 195g/546m and it is 50% Romney, 25% Silk, 25% Linen.

Continuing to spin some older fibres

This is an older fibre from March 2015, although I have only owned it since May 2022 after purchasing it from another spinner who was having a destash, and this another fibre that was from the monthly fibre club that I used to participate in between May 2018 and May 2020, but from its earlier days.

This one is called "Suffragette" and there are two braids, which total 212g together.  The fibre content is 49% Merino, 17% Corriedale, 17% Bluefaced Leicester, 17% Bamboo.

With this one I did a very simple break the braid into two lengths, pre-draft, spin from the end and ply together to create two very straight forward 2ply skeins.

These yarns have spun up as fingering weight and there is 212g/743m of soft, squishy yarn.  It's not my favourite colour, it is a dark green with a kind of dark smokey mauve-grey colour.  It does remind me a lot of another from the same fibre club that I spun a long time ago that was called "Emerald City" and I've included photos of that yarn below and as you can see they are almost identical.  The fibre content on that one was 50% Merino, 25% Bluefaced Leicester, 12.5% Mulberry Silk, 12.5% Bamboo and that also spun up to fingering weight.

Spinning some Faux Cashmere

If I can spin 100% Silk yarns then spinning another braid of Faux Cashmere should be a breeze.  I've tackled a braid before, back in 2022 for the TDF, where I spun that as a 2ply yarn and just pre-drafted and spun from the end and plied. Faux Cashmere is actually 100% Nylon

This time I decided to try something different with my new found confidence in different spinning techniques that I have been trying out in more recent times.

I'm working on spinning my way through some of my older braids of fibre and this one I got from Yummy Yarns UK back in August 2018, 6 years ago!  The colour of this is called Pebble.

What I noticed when I undone the braid is that the dye didn't go all the way through the thickness of the braid in most places.  A lot of it was just on the surface which means that there is way more white fibres than anticipated.  I decided that I would probably be best to pull off small chunks and spin over the fold to try and keep the splodges of colour together in one long single and then to chain ply to keep the colours together even more.  For this to work effectively and give me a decent amount of meterage to knit with I will have to spin as fine as I can.

As you can see from the spinning on the bobbin, this method is working pretty well, producing lengths of different colours/shades.  I like the way this is spinning up, it's really pretty.

I think this has spun up much better than the braid I spun back in 2022.  It has a different feel to it.  The first skein feels "heavy, dense" whilst this one feels light, airy and soft and that has to be to do with spinning it over-the-fold which traps more air between the fibres.  Maybe I should spin over-the-fold more often.  Choosing to chain ply has helped keep the colours together but I think this could have been improved on further had I been more selective and flexible in the lengths of my chain loops to keep like for like colours even more together. This yarn is still gorgeous and is 97g/244m and comes in at a light fingering weight.

Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2024 Stage 17

The Cycling: Stage 17 is 177.8km of a mountain route that starts in Saint Paul Trois Châteaux and ends in Superdévoluy.

The Daily Challenge: If you're passing Saint-Paul-Trois-Chateaux it only seems right to drop into their famous truffle market.  Ply a dark fibre with a light to make a contrasting marl.

Suggested Fibre: For this, we'd pair Black Truffle with Wensleydale.  As well as spinning fibre, it's a great cheese combo.

What I did

I had already decided that I wasn't doing today's challenge, or any more of the challenges unless they fitted in with the fibre, when I chose to start spinning the fibre set I started yesterday.  Not only that, but we are about to go on a long weekend break away with our two teenagers in tow so with last minute laundry washing, organising and packing tomorrow and travelling on Friday, once I've collected our youngest from their last session at college until after the long summer break, I won't have time to do any more spinning this TDF.

So, today's spin was more Tussah Silk and it was Day 3 of the 12 Days of Advent.  A dark green Tussah Silk called "Fir".

This one took me about 30 minutes less to spin than my first mini skein of Silk.  I think it's turned out slightly better and a little more even as well.

This one is 20g/96.8m and I managed to not get myself in a tangled mess at the end of the plying this time.

Knowing that this is the end of my TDF journey this year my total TDF spinning lengths, taking into account the individual singles and the plies, amounts to 7,296.78m (which is about 4 and a half miles).  I know that doesn't sound like much but considering how much spare time I actually have during each very busy day it is actually a lot of yarn spun.

These are all my TDF2024 spins together, in order, starting from top right to left then bottom right to left.  I will do a quick write up of the next few and final days of the TDF route and challenge info, but of course there will be no spinning in relation to them.  I hope to be able to carry on spinning my silk packets over the 6 week summer break, but who knows what could happen, I take life one day at a time at the moment.

Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2024 Stage 16

The Cycling: Stage 16 is 188.6km of a flat route that starts in Gruissan and ends in Nîmes.

The Daily Challenge: A little bit of a tenuous link to our song today... Nîmes is twinned with Preston in Lancashire and Lancashire is the home of fictional duo Wallace and Gromit.  Our song of the day is the Wallace and Gromit Theme.  Spin something that you find tricky - grab your fibre-arch nemesis and conquer the challenge!

Suggested Fibre: We've opted for Carded Fawn UK Alpaca Sliver because its soft and short, so we really have to pay attention!

What I did

Well, I didn't watch 2 hours worth of instructional videos last night for nothing.  I decided to tackle my arch nemesis fibre.  Silk.  I'm not talking about Silk in a blend.  I'm talking about 100% pure Silk spun on it's own.  Fine, flyaway, slippery as hell, easy clumping Silk.

I have a very particular set of fibres that I have been putting off spinning for a very long time.  It is a 12 Days of Christmas set that I got in 2018 from a past supplier.   I wrote a couple of posts about it at the time here and here.

I am starting with the first 20g bump of Tussah Silk from the pack and will spin over-the-fold.  The main braid was the first day and the Silk started from Day 2.

I haven't soaked the finished yarn yet, I will do that when I have all of the silks spun up, but here is a photo of my first skein of handspun 100% pure Silk yarn.

It wasn't as difficult to spin as I envisaged but I did get a little tangled up at the end when I made a small Andean plying bracelet as one bobbin had a bit more on it that the other one and the Andean plying bracelet slipped over my hand and off right towards the end.  It's not perfect but I'm pretty happy with it and at this point it is measuring up as 19g/97.5m but that might change slightly after a good long soak sometime in the near-ish future.  I'm certainly happy to carry on and spin the remaining 10 bumps of Silk.

Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2024 Stage 14

The Cycling: Stage 14 is 151.9km of a mountain route that starts in Pau and ends in Saint Lary Soulan Pla D'Adet.

The Daily Challenge: We love a good board game and if they're your cup of tea then the board game festival in Pau is the place to visit (if you're not cycling through!)  Time to up the ante; get something finished.  (We're pretty sure that finishing a packet of biscuits counts too).

Suggested Fibre: You're spinning to finish something - anything!  Grab what you need and go go go!

What I did

I spun the second single of the second skein and plied and although I am very proud of the 4 blends that I dyed and put together myself I am really pleased that they are finally spun and finished.  It has been a long journey and a lot of hard work.

This spun up to sport weight and the skeins are 97g/203m and 95g/205m.  The fibre content is 76.5% Llandovery Whiteface Hill Wool, 9.5% Tussah Silk, 5% Hemp, 4.5% Silk Noil, 4.5% Trilobal Nylon.

Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2024 Stage 13

The Cycling: Stage 13 is 165.3km of a flat route that starts in Agen and ends in Pau.

The Daily Challenge: We've gone from the umbrella capital of France to the prune capital of France!  They've even got a show.  We're going for a simple one; spin something purple.

Suggested Fibre: Bio-nylon Plum, this biodegradable synthetic fibre will surprise you.  It has a soft handle and doesn't squeak!

What I did

I continued to spin what I started yesterday and spun the second single and plied my first skein.  I also managed to spin the first single of the second skein.  I don't have any additional photos to show off at this stage.

Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2024 Stage 12

The Cycling: Stage 12 is 203.6km of a flat route that starts in Aurillac and ends in Villeneuve Sur Lot.

The Daily Challenge: We love this one; Aurillac is the historical French capital of umbrellas and has been since 1850!  This requires a bit of thought.  Find out the average rainfall in your area in mm.  Then spin this many metres from 100g of fibre.  So, if you're average rainfall is 10mm, you need to get 10 metres from 100g of fibre.

Suggested Fibre: Whatever you like!  We're suggesting Icelandic as Iceland has the highest average rainfall of anywhere in Europe.  Apparently it even outstrips us!

What I did

I had no intention of doing today's challenge.  I made a start on spinning something for tomorrow's challenge.  I have picked the last of my four Llandovery Whiteface Hill blends and I have spun the first 50g as a single.  This is Mist at Twilight.

Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2024 Stage 11

The Cycling: Stage 11 is 211km of a mountain route that starts in Évaux Les Bains and ends in Le Lioran.

The Daily Challenge: Évaux Les Bains has been around for 2000 years and was a Roman spa town.  Go natural with non-dyed fibre!  No dye colours here, just beautiful natural fibre.

Suggested Fibre: The Romney (or at least Romney-type) is thought to have been introduced to the UK by the Romans, so this is a good choice for today's theme.

What I did

I'm not doing todays challenge so all I have done is to carry on from yesterday and spin the second single and ply them together.

My finished skein is fingering weight and 101g/267m and the fibre content is 87.5% Corriedale Wool, 12.5% Rainbow Trilobal Nylon.

Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2024 Stage 10

The Cycling: Stage 10 is 187.3km of a flat route that starts in Orléans and ends in Saint Amand Montrond.

The Daily Challenge: Monrond is noted for it's goldsmiths; it has 9 companies and a school of jewellery.  Gold has been part of its trade for many years.  Bring some opulence to your spin by adding something gold or even a bit of sparkle.  Why not both...?

Suggested Fibre: Angelina Gold is the obvious choice for this one.  A tiny bit will bring a definite sparkle to any project and a large bit will make it positively gleam!

What I did

I am trying to spin up some the oldest fibres in my stash so for this challenge I decided to spin a World of Wool Team Blend from 2020 called Peacock by Adam.  Team Blends are created by the staff that work at World of Wool and then customers are invited to vote online for their favourite ones and those that get the highest number of votes are produced as a shop product and the staff who created them get a percentage of the sales from it.  I know that this year, 2024, we have been asked to vote for our favourite 10 out of 22 and the top 10 favourites will become shop products for 12 months but I think that during Covid lockdown, when this one was produced, we had a much lower number of blends to choose from, probably because they would have had a lower number of staff working for them at that time due to the restrictions.

This fibre doesn't have any Angelina in it but it does have rainbow Trilobal Nylon so it's still a bit sparkly/shimmery.

I only spun the first single today.

Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2024 First Rest Day

The Cycling: Today is the first official rest day of the Tour and the cyclists transfer to Orléans in readiness for tomorrow.

The Daily Challenge: Orléans was liberated by Joan of Arc on 8th May 1429 - not a very relaxing face but a key part of history!  Rest is important.  So we challenge you to nap uninterrupted from 30 minutes.  

Suggested Fibre: No spinning, just napping!  But if you are desperate then it's a good opportunity to finish what you've started - or even to try to get ahead if you've got a goal in mind.

What I did

I finished spinning the second single and then plied them both together.  Amazingly, and only just, I did actually manage to squeeze all of the yarn onto one bobbin when I plied it and there is no room left between the yarn on the bobbin and the flyer arm (which spins around the bobbin feeding the yarn onto the bobbin.

This spun to fingering weight and there was actually a bit more in the pack than the 140g.  My finished skein is 148g/375m

Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2024 Stage 9

The Cycling: Stage 9 is 199km of a hilly route that starts in Troyes and ends in Troyes.

The Daily Challenge: This area produces 1/4 of all champagne.  We estimate that to be around 75 million bottle which is enough to fill 22 Olympic swimming pools!  Spin a fibre that is a treat for you; it might be your go-to favourite or something you've been saving for a special occasion.

Suggested Fibre: Pink Champagne is the first of this year's limited edition TDF blends.  It is 37.5% "Rose Leaf" Tussah Silk, 25% "Eggshell" Merino, 25% "Sandstone" Merino and 12.5% "Oyster" Merino for a subtle colour and soft handle

What I did

This fibre is kind of a treat for me and I have been saving it for a while.  It is a 140g pack of gradient blend that is 86% Corriedale Wool, 14% Mulberry Silk.  I got this from a previous supplier that I used to get most of my fibres from before I stopped purchasing from her due to her behaviour and attitude towards some of her customers, including me.

My plans for this fibre was to spin a 2 ply yarn by splitting each bump of fibre into 2 equal parts. I did consider just spinning one long single and then chain plying it but I wouldn't be able to fit it all into one bobbin and it just fried my brain trying to work out how to handle having to split the single over 2 bobbins whilst keeping the colours in the right order for plying afterwards and how to manage the join from one bobbin to another so I took the easier route of spinning two singles and plying.

I pre-drafted each half of the bumps, joining the bumps in order as I pre-drafted and I did notice that the fibre didn't draft particularly smoothly and evenly.  I started spinning from the lightest colour in the gradient, towards the darkest shade.

As I was spinning this blend I discovered the reason for this blend not drafting particularly smoothly in places and that was due to this fibre having clumps of really short fibres, along with some absolute rubbish, every now and then down the braid.  It made spinning a little more challenging but I persevered and spun all of one single and made a start on the second one today.

Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2024 Stage 8

The Cycling: Stage 8 is 183.4km of a flat route that starts in Semur-en-Auxois and ends in Colombey Les Deux Églises.

The Daily Challenge: The town of Semur-en-Auxios used to have a lot of mills supporting its industry, but the building of the Lac de Pont dam caused a change in the river which meant it was no longer powerful enough to run the mills.  Introduce a bit of texture to your spin, extra points for river-theming it.

Suggested Fibre: All of our Sari Silks will bring texture to s a spin, and River Rapids is quite thematic!

What I did

I spun and plied the next two singles of my Llandovery Whiteface Hill blend "Evening at the Bay".  It contains texture and is river themed.  I think the lighter blue parts of the Silk Noil looks like whitewater rapids in the river of blue.

This is spun to sport weight and the skeins are 99g/218m and 98g/204m.  The fibre content is 75% Llandovery Whiteface Hill Wool, 10% Tussah Silk, 6% Trilobal Nylon, 5% Hemp, 4%Silk Noil.

Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2024 Stage 7

The Cycling: Stage 7 is 25.3km of a time trial that starts in Nuits Saint Georges and ends in Gevrey-Chambertin.

The Daily Challenge: Gevrey-Chambertin was originally known as Gevrey.  It added the name of it's most successful vineyard to the town name and others soon follow suit.  It is well know for it's burgundy wine production.  Pick any fibre you like, you've got the length of the song "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" by Daft Punk (3 minutes and 42 seconds) to see how much you can spin!

Suggested Fibre: Your choice!  Pick something you know you can whizz along with.  We'd go for Natural Bluefaced Leicester.

What I did

Well, I'm certainly not doing today's challenge.  I only ever done one of these "spin as much as you can in a given time" challenges once before and it was such a pain in backside trying to measure how much I spun and I got into such a tangled mess in doing so that I refuse to participate in those kind of challenges anymore.  

Following on from what I started yesterday, after I plied the Saffron Sunshine, and spun the first single of my next chosen fibre I spun the second single and plied them together.  This the third of my Llandovery Whiteface Hill blends and this one is called Evening at the Bay.

Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2024 Stage 6

The Cycling: Stage 6 is 163.5km of a flat route that starts in Mâcon and ends in Dijon.

The Daily Challenge: Dijon is the birthplace of Dijon Mustard - if you hadn't already guessed.  But did you know, in 2022 there was a mustard shortage as Dijon's main supply of mustard seed from Ukraine and Russia was reduced due to the war.  Instead, seed had to be produced from Canada.  This is an easy peasy lemon squeezy one today - spin something yellow!

Suggested Fibre: Corriedale Mustard is the obvious choice; it's yellow and a nice, fast spin.

What I did

Oh wouldn't you know, my current spin also fits today's challenge, kind of, as I consider the colour of my blend to fit in with the mustardy-yellow range of colours.  Did I plan my spins this way?  A hill breed yesterday and something yellow today, oh yes I certainly did!

I plied the second set of singles today and the photos of the finished yarn actually represents the true colour (because I took these photos using my Canon camera and not my phone!).  This is spun to double-knit weight and the skeins are 82g/171m and 86g/177m.  The fibre content is 77.5% Llandovery Whiteface Hill Wool, 8.5% Tussah Silk, 5% Silk Noil, 5% Hemp, 4% Trilobal Nylon.

After I finished this yarn, I spun the first single of my next spin, which I have chosen to spin for the Stage 8 challenge.

Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2024 Stage 5

The Cycling: Stage 5 is 177.4km of a flat route that starts in Saint Jean de Maurienne and ends in Saint Vulbas.

The Daily Challenge: In 1996 the wonderful Festival of Bread was created in Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne to help promote small businesses and artisans.  It's grown year on year and it is a very popular annual event. (And let's face it, after that cycling a nice, fresh loaf would be welcome!)  Even though we're on the flat it's never totally smooth, so today's challenge is to spin a hill breed.

Suggested Fibre: Hill Radnor is a strong fibre which is good for socks and a surprisingly pleasant spin!

What I did

Following on from what I started yesterday, I plied the first two singles and then I spun the next two singles.  That was a lot of spinning in just one day and the plying will have to wait until tomorrow.  This blend fits in with today's challenge of spinning a hill breed as the main ingredient of this blend is Llandovery Whitefaced Hill wool.

The camera on my phone is still not picking up the correct colour of this yarn but I am sure that my Canon camera will once I have finished the spinning and the twist has been set but the true colour is that of the photos in the blend photos.