Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2024 Stage 15

The Cycling: Stage 15 is 198km of a mountain route that starts in Loudenvielle and ends in Plateau du Beille.

The Daily Challenge: As well as being a ski resort Pleateau du Beille has some interesting flora and fauna including varieties of moss, carnivorous plants and even eagles.  Step away from the wool and grab a plant fibre or a fibre blended with plant fibres.

Suggested Fibre: Flax/Linen was our first thought for this blend, and then we remembered the gorgeous "Little Wren".

What I did

I didn't do any spinning today.  Instead I have caught up with measuring all the yarns that have been soaked and dried since they were spun, to get their final finished measurements and thicknesses, and I have done all the costings for these as well to include the labour cost of all the hours of spinning along with the actual materials cost and my stock and materials database has been updated.

This photo is all four of the Llandovery Whiteface Hill blends together.  The brown and yellow are double knit weight, the blue and purple are sport weight and there are two skeins of each colour

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 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.

Spinning the Llandovery Whiteface Hill blend - Foxes and Pumpkins

At the end of November I was playing with my blending hackle and created this fibre for spinning.  I have finally found some time to sit down and get some spinning done over the Easter break.  During the pre-draft I had to try my best to ensure that various lumps and bumps of the additions to the wool were spread out along the length and then during the spinning process, which I started on 2nd April, I had to make sure that I pulled apart and thinned out the lumps of Silk Noil as I went and ensured that they were well secured in with the spin and again on the ply.  

I've not gone for anything really fine due to the amount of lumps and bumps that I put into the blend and so I've spun this up to Double Knit weight (11 wpi), producing two skeins for a total of 193g/457m.  The fibre content is 75% Llandovery Whiteface Hill Wool, 9% Tussah Silk, 6% Trilobal Nylon, 5% Silk Noil, 5% Hemp.

Blending the Purple Llandovery Whiteface Hill - Mist at Twlight

Yay, the last one!  Oh I really do ache now because it is tiring on the arms and shoulders loading up the blending hackle four times and dizzing off the blend, especially when you're using wool that you have stupidly managed to felt slightly during the dye process. I seriously need to look at my temperature probe in my dye kit, I'm positive it's on the fritz and I have tried changing the battery but that hasn't resolved the issue.  I think it's a damaged wire problem.  So, the Llandovery Whiteface Hill fleece that I dyed back in September.  I sorted out the additional fibres that I would be adding to all four lots of Llandovery Whiteface Hill back at that time and then dyed the lots of fleece colours to go with the additional fibres that I had chosen.  All of the additional fibres in the different colours are within a few grams of each other and I plan to use all of each bump of fibre so that the final fibre content won't be exactly the same for all four blends but will be very close.

The other fibres that I chose to put in this blend are, from left to right, top to bottom: 19g Tussah Silk in shade Twilight, 9g Trilobal Nylon in shade Violet, 9g Silk Noil in shade Sea Mist, 10g Hemp that I dyed myself in June 2023 using cold water dyes and finally 153g Llandovery Whiteface Hill fibre that I dyed in September.  I have decided to call this colourway "Mist at Twilight".

I discovered that I had somehow managed to felt the wool slightly during the dye process so I had a little bit of trouble getting it to open up again.  I didn't pre-comb this one again either.  I've ended up with 200g of a lovely unique blend ready to spin.

The fibre content of this one works out to be:

76.5% Llandovery Whiteface Hill wool
9.5% Tussah Silk
5% Hemp
4.5% Silk Noil
4.5% Trilobal Nylon

Blending the Blue Llandovery Whiteface Hill - Evening at the Bay

Pushing on with my quest to tackle the Llandovery Whiteface Hill fleece that I dyed back in September, today I am tackling the blue one.  I sorted out the additional fibres that I would be adding to all four lots of Llandovery Whiteface Hill back at that time and then dyed the lots of fleece colours to go with the additional fibres that I had chosen.  All of the additional fibres in the different colours are within a few grams of each other and I plan to use all of each bump of fibre so that the final fibre content won't be exactly the same for all four blends but will be very close.

The other fibres that I chose to put in this blend are, from left to right, top to bottom: 21g Tussah Silk in shade Evening, 12g Trilobal Nylon in shade Bay, 9g Silk Noil in shade Colbalt, 11g Hemp in shade Bright Blue and finally 155g Llandovery Whiteface Hill fibre that I dyed in September.  I have decided to call this colourway "Evening at the Bay".

I discovered that I had somehow managed to felt the wool slightly during the dye process so I had a little bit of trouble getting it to open up again.  I didn't pre-comb this one this time, I learnt my lesson on the last one.  I've ended up with 208g of a lovely unique blend ready to spin.

The fibre content of this one works out to be:

75% Llandovery Whiteface Hill wool
10% Tussah Silk
4% Silk Noil
6% Trilobal Nylon
5% Hemp
4% Silk Noil

Blending the Yellow-Orange Llandovery Whiteface Hill - Saffron Sunshine

It's been a few weeks since I last played with my blending hackle, I've been doing some spinning as well as preparing for the festive celebrations, but I really need to tackle the Llandovery Whiteface Hill fleece that I dyed back in September.  I sorted out the additional fibres that I would be adding to all four lots of Llandovery Whiteface Hill back at that time and then dyed the lots of fleece colours to go with the additional fibres that I had chosen.  All of the additional fibres in the different colours are within a few grams of each other and I plan to use all of each bump of fibre so that the final fibre content won't be exactly the same for all four blends but will be very close.

The other fibres that I chose to put in this blend are, from left to right, top to bottom: 15g Tussah Silk in shade Saffron, 7g Trilobal Nylon in shade Sun, 9g Silk Noil in shade Saffron, 9g Hemp that I dyed myself in June 2023 using cold water dyes and finally 139g Llandovery Whiteface Hill fibre that I dyed in September.  I have decided to call this colourway "Saffron Sunshine".

I discovered that I had somehow managed to felt the wool slightly during the dye process so I had a little bit of trouble getting it to open up again.  This time I decided to try combing it again before using it on the hackle to try to make it easier but I've lost quite a lot of fibre doing that and it hasn't made it feel any softer than just opening it up on the hackle during the blending.  I've ended up with 179g of a lovely unique blend ready to spin.

The fibre content of this one works out to be:

77.5% Llandovery Whiteface Hill wool
8.5% Tussah Silk
5% Silk Noil
5% Hemp
4% Trilobal Nylon

Blending the Orange-Brown Llandovery Whiteface Hill - Foxes and Pumpkins

Today I have been having fun with my blending hackle and tackling the Llandovery Whiteface Hill fleece that I dyed orange-brown back in September.  I sorted out the additional fibres that I would be adding to all four lots of Llandovery Whiteface Hill back at that time and then dyed the lots of fleece colours to go with the additional fibres that I had chosen.  All of the additional fibres in the different colours are within a few grams of each other and I plan to use all of each bump of fibre so that the final fibre content won't be exactly the same for all four blends but will be very close.

The other fibres that I chose to put in this blend are, from left to right, top to bottom: 19g Tussah Silk in shade Rust, 12g Trilobal Nylon in shade Pumpkin Spice, 10g Silk Noil in shade Pumpkin, 11g Hemp that I dyed myself in June 2023 using cold water dyes and finally 156g Llandovery Whiteface Hill fibre that I dyed in September that I think looks like the colour of foxes.  With this in mind I have decided to call this colourway "Foxes and Pumpkins".

I discovered that I had somehow managed to felt the wool slightly during the dye process so I had a little bit of trouble getting it to open up again but I managed it and I ended up with 208g of a lovely unique blend ready to spin.

The fibre content of this one works out to be:

75% Llandovery Whiteface Hill wool
9% Tussah Silk
6% Trilobal Nylon
5% Silk Noil
5% Hemp

Dyeing an array of fibres purple

Further to my previous three posts I have continued to dye the Llandovery Whiteface Hill wool and fibre selection that I have chosen and now that the third lot is dry I can get on with my fourth and final lot. 

So, what I will be dyeing in each dye pot is:

150-155g of Llandovery Whiteface Hill wool that I hand combed myself
40g Suri Alpaca, this is some raw fleece from an alpaca called "Butterscotch"
25g of 14.5 micron Merino, which was from Day 23 of the 2021 Advent Calendar
25g of Mulberry Silk
12g of Tussah Silk Noil
12g of Trilobal Nylon
12g Milk Protein, which was from Day 19 of the 2021 Advent Calendar

I soaked all of the fibres in warm water with a splash of Synthropol added to the water to remove any "chemical finish" that may have been added to the fibres during production.  This also removes any grease and dirt that may be left in the fleece.

I made up a dye bath of 1% dye depth made up of 67.5% River Blue and 22.5% Flame Red and 10% Midnight Black.  What I weighed out was 1.86g of River Blue, 0.62g of Flame Red and 0.276g of Midnight Black.  The dye didn't take so well on the two Silk lots, they are little bit patchy but they are OK.

Dyeing an array of fibres blue

Further to my previous two posts I have continued to dye the Llandovery Whiteface Hill wool and fibre selection that I have chosen and now that the first two lots are dry I can get on with my third. 

So, what I will be dyeing in each dye pot is:

150-155g of Llandovery Whiteface Hill wool that I hand combed myself
40g Suri Alpaca, this is some raw fleece from an alpaca called "Butterscotch"
25g of 14.5 micron Merino, which was from Day 23 of the 2021 Advent Calendar
25g of Mulberry Silk
12g of Tussah Silk Noil
12g of Trilobal Nylon
12g Milk Protein, which was from Day 19 of the 2021 Advent Calendar

I soaked all of the fibres in warm water with a splash of Synthropol added to the water to remove any "chemical finish" that may have been added to the fibres during production.  This also removes any grease and dirt that may be left in the fleece.

I made up a dye bath of 1% dye depth made up of 75% River Blue and 25% Amazon Green.  What I weighed out was 2.07g of River Blue and 0.69g of Amazon Green.  The dye didn't take so well on the two Silk lots, they are little bit patchy but they are OK.

Dyeing an array of fibres yellow-orange

Further to my post of earlier today I have also dyed a second batch of fibres the colour that I had intended to the first time around, before I weighed the dye out incorrectly.

So, what I will be dyeing in each dye pot is:

150-155g of Llandovery Whiteface Hill wool that I hand combed myself
40g Suri Alpaca, this is some raw fleece from an alpaca called "Butterscotch"
25g of 14.5 micron Merino, which was from Day 23 of the 2021 Advent Calendar
25g of Mulberry Silk
12g of Tussah Silk Noil
12g of Trilobal Nylon
12g Milk Protein, which was from Day 19 of the 2021 Advent Calendar

I soaked all of the fibres in warm water with a splash of Synthropol added to the water to remove any "chemical finish" that may have been added to the fibres during production.  This also removes any grease and dirt that may be left in the fleece.

I made up a dye bath of 1% dye depth made up of 95% Sunshine Yellow, 2.5% River Blue and 2.5% Flame Red.  What I weighed out was 2.62g of Sunshine Yellow and 0.138g each of River Blue and Flame Red.  The dye didn't take so well on the two Silk lots or the Milk Protein, they are little bit patchy but they are OK.

Dyeing an array of fibres orange-brown

Further to my post of a few days ago I have now decided what I am going to do with the combed Llandovery Whiteface Hill fibre.  I decided to split the fibre into 4 lots of around 155g each and add the same fibres to each lot but in different colours so that I can dye the fibre an appropriate colour and make 4 yarns that are almost identical but just in different colours.  The total amount of fibre in each lot will be enough to make 2 skeins of yarn and a nice amount to make a shawl.

I started out by sorting items from my ingredients cupboard into colour groups and then checking if I had at least 4 different colours of any given fibre.  Where I didn't have the necessary 4 colours that fibre was eliminated from the piles.  Next I had to decide which fibres in each colour group worked well together, such as which shades of blue out of all of the packets looked good together.  I ended up with 5 piles of 4 small packets of fibres so I had to eliminate one colour group, which I did easily as the colours didn't work together as well as the other piles.

I also decided that I would take the opportunity to dye some of the currently undyed fibres in my stash at the same time so that these would go into my "ingredients cupboard" for use at a later date.

So, what I will be dyeing in each dye pot is:

150-155g of Llandovery Whiteface Hill wool that I hand combed myself
40g Suri Alpaca, this is some raw fleece from an alpaca called "Butterscotch"
25g of 14.5 micron Merino, which was from Day 23 of the 2021 Advent Calendar
25g of Mulberry Silk
12g of Tussah Silk Noil
12g of Trilobal Nylon
12g Milk Protein, which was from Day 19 of the 2021 Advent Calendar

I soaked all of the fibres in warm water with a splash of Synthropol added to the water to remove any "chemical finish" that may have been added to the fibres during production.  This also removes any grease and dirt that may be left in the fleece.

I had intended my first batch to be dyed a kind of mustard yellow but I made a really stupid mistake when I was weighing the dye out and only realised once I added the fibres to the dye pot and saw the colour it all went.  Whoops, but a happy mistake because the fibres have turned out almost the exact colour I had intended for my second batch.

What I had planned was 1% dye depth made up of 95% Sunshine Yellow, 2.5% River Blue and 2.5% Flame Red.  What I should have weighed out was 2.62g of Sunshine Yellow and 0.138g each of River Blue and Flame Red.  What I actually weighed out was the correct amount of Sunshine Yellow and then I messed up and weighed out 1.38g each of River Blue and Flame Red (10 times too much of each colour).  The dye didn't take so well on the two Silk lots and in both cases they are kind of a peachy-coral colour along with what can only be described as grey and it looks like a pile of burnt rubbish. 

Combing the rest of the Llandovery Whiteface Hill sheep fleece

This past year or so I've been working on spinning up older braids of fibre and preparing fleece that I have had for the longest time along with either dyeing fibres for my "ingredients cupboard" or using up items from my "ingredients cupboard" in blends.  This particular fleece isn't old, I'd only had it just over a year but I had two pillowcases full of this fleece and there was a lot of kemp that was sticking out through the fabric of the pillowcase so it was making a bit of a mess as well as taking up a lot of space.  I decided to comb this fleece to save on space.  I did actually finish combing the first pillowcase full back in early December 2022 and this contained 583g of fleece and after 19 hours of combing, not in one session, I had 218g of nice soft fluff.  

The second pillowcase full weighs 1,105g and has been sat across the room looking at me menacingly ever since.  I finally started to tackle this monster job on Friday 8th September 2023 and I have worked at it all over the weekend and have now finally finished combing it, 5 days beginning on the 8th and finishing today, on the 12th September.  It took just about 25 and a half hours to comb my way through it and I got 400g of fluff.  So, this almost whole fleece that was left over from the Breeds Project started out at 1,688g and I have got 618g of soft fluff ready for spinning or dyeing and spinning and it has taken me 44 hours and 20 minutes of work to get to that.  Overall though, including that what I used for the project, I got a total of 712g of fluff from 1,916g of kempy fleece and that is a yield of 37.16%.

I didn't take any additional photos, other than what I took last year when I spun some up for the British Breeds Project.

I have plans to dye the fluff, now that the kemp has been removed, and use some of the things in my "ingredients cupboard" to make blends for spinning.  I haven't decided what colours yet, I need to see what I have in the cupboard and dye the wool to match or co-ordinate with that.

Llandovery Whiteface Hill Sheep

The Llandovery Whiteface Hill sheep is a breed of Welsh Mountain sheep that has been bred for generations to thrive in the area of the Black Mountain in Carmarthenshire and is a little larger than other Welsh Mountain sheep.  Development of the breed has focused on retaining the hardiness and maternal quality of the breed whilst improving conformation to ensure that demand for ewes for breeding stock and lambs for the food chain and the focus remains on improvements for the meat market.  There is no focus on improving the fleece.  Demand for breeding ewes come from all across Wales and beyond for the production of Welsh Mules and Welsh Half-breds. The Llandovery Whiteface Hill Sheep Society was founded in 1998 by a small number of local farmers wanting to progress the genetic development of the breed.  However, they do not appear to have a website as yet.

Llandovery Whiteface Hill ewes

Llandovery Whiteface Hill rams

The Llandovery Whiteface Hill sheep, at the time of writing, is in the Rare Breeds Survival Trust category 6: "Other UK Native Breeds" (over 3000) registered breeding ewes.  Breeders remain in the localised area of Llandovery and the sheep are sold at Llandovery Market.  There is no information about this breed in either of my two reference books and one of them is produced by the British Wool Marketing Board, who couldn't tell me anything about the breed when I approached them for information and if it wasn't for the fact that this breed is listed on the Rare Breeds Survival Trust website I would not have known that it even existed.  There is also very little information on the Internet about the breed either and nothing about the qualities of the fleece, micron counts, weight or staple length or how best to prepare it.  It seems that it is undiscovered from a hand spinning point of view.

They are a medium build sheep with a whiteface and legs, which are free from wool, white ears and black nostrils. Ewes are naturally polled but rams can be with or without horns.

They produce a medium size dense white fleece, mine arrived at a little over 3kg, that contains a large amount of kemp in both white and red.  The staple length is around 4-5 inches (10-12.5cm)

The advise in my reference books for similar fleece is that they can be spun from teased locks, it can be carded or combed. If you leave the kemp in that it is going to create a very textured scratchy yarn with interest from the red kemp.  If you comb it and remove the kemp then you will be left with lovely soft wool.

Yarns spun from Llandovery Whiteface Hill fleece that contain the kemp are definitely suited to household items and upholstery and if you have removed the kemp then I would say that they are definitely good for next-to-skin use.  

This one has been extremely difficult to get my hands on and it has taken me over a year to obtain a fleece. I couldn't find any for sale anywhere because it is not well known and I discovered that the British Wool Marketing Board just clump the fleece in with other white Welsh Mountain fleece.   Given that there is no website for the breed society there was no obvious point of contact.  I did find a blog post that mentioned the breed and I contacted that person, who was very helpful and put me in touch with a farmer of the breed who informed me that his sheep were sheared the previous week, on 16th June 2021, and he was happy to sell a fleece to me.  Then it went silent and I never heard from him again.  I feared it might have been due to Covid but it wasn't and I eventually gave up on him.

I recommenced my search in April of this year, just before the start of shearing season, and the best time to make contact with breeders to reserve a fleece.  Seeing as how the Rare Breeds Survival Trust know about how many of this breed there are I contacted them for help and they gave me an e-mail address for the breed society.  I made contact but never got a response.  Browsing Instagram one day I suddenly got the idea to search for Llandovery and lots of business accounts came up, one of which was a wool shop in the town, so I made contact.  I got a response the following day to say she couldn't help but she put me in touch with someone else.  That person couldn't help me either but she gave me a phone number to call so I rang the number and it was the Llandovery Market, where they sell the sheep.  I explained to them what I was doing and that it was the last fleece I needed to complete the project.  They gave me a name and a phone number of a local farmer who, in their words, is very approachable and helpful.  I rang and left a message and after a couple of chats on the phone I purchased a fleece and it arrived quite quickly.

I have bought this breed in as a full fleece from Wyn Morgan in the Brecon Beacons and it arrived on 8th June, my 20th wedding anniversary, and it weighed just over 3kg.  I had a little peek inside the top of the bag and it looked very kempy but I wasn't able to get it out of the bag and examine it until I had time to start washing it on the 10th June.

About half of the fleece was washed on 10th June and it filled my drying hanger so the rest had to wait until this was dry.  This first batch filled a pillowcase and weighed 1,105g (excluding the weight of the pillowcase.  The rest of the fleece was washed on 14th June and weighed 811g once it was dry, giving me a total of 1,916g of clean but kemp rich fleece to prepare.

I combed 228g of fleece to get 94g of gorgeous, soft, hand combed top, just enough for my project.
  

Look at how white and fluffy that single looks on the bobbin

My finished yarn is of good quality to the touch of the hand it is really soft and squishy and light with just a very tiny crispness to it if you squeeze it hard. I have 93g/230m of sport weight yarn. My knitted piece for the project took 46g/114m so I have some left to do whatever with, and the rest of the fleece of course.

Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2022 Stage 1 - Copenhagen to Copenhagen (Denmark)

Day 1 of the Tour de France is here and it is a 13km long Individual Time Trial that starts and ends in Copenhagen, Denmark.  Hmmm, not in France, is this a thing that happens often, I have no idea as last year was the first time I've ever paid it any attention and that is only because I joined up to a Tour de Fleece team.

The Map

Sights and points of interest along the route

Today's route takes the riders over The Queen Louise Bridge, the Tyco Brahe Planetarium, the former Carlsbery Brewery, the castle and the zoo. The riders race down the Norrebrograde, the main shopping street in Norrebro and on the side of a house on this street is a huge mural depicting a young woman riding a bike that was painted in 1993 by Finnish street artist Seppo Mattinens.  

Seppo Mattinens mural

Through St. John's Market square with it's granite statue by Jorgen Haugen Sorensen (1934-2021) and the oldest church in the district, St John's Church, built in 1861.  At the centre of the Trianglen is an Art Nouveau tram station built in 1907 by Peder Vilhelm Jensen-Klint

The riders will cycle past Parken Stadium, the home of FC Copenhagen and the Danish national football team before approaching Kastellet, a baroque style fortress built in 1692 by Christian IV of Denmark and the Citadel defended Copenhagen against the English in 1807 but then surrendered with the rest of the city.  The Citadel was captured by German troops during the invasion of Copenhagen on 9th April 1940.  

Kastellet

There is also a park near here, Langelinie Park, that contains many monuments and statues including the Gefion Fountain donated to the city by the Carlsberg Foundation on the 50th anniversary of the brewery and installed in 1908.  The park also contains the Ivar Huitfeldt Column and the Little Mermaid built in 1913 and donated to the city by Carl Jacobsen, the founder of the Carlsberg brewery.

The Little Mermaid

Riders then travel along Amailegade, a long street lined with elegant mansions and palaces, most dating from the second half of the 18th century with many once belonging to various members of the Royal Family.

Amalienborg Palace and the equestrian statue

The route ends with Hans Christian Andersen Boulevard, the widest and busiest street in Copenhagen and is 1.3km long and contains the Central Fire Station built in 1892.

Who Won the Stage and Who Won What Jersey

The Stage winner is Yves Lampaert for Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl.

The Yellow Jersey won by Yves Lampaert for Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl.

The Green Jersey won by Yves Lampaert for Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl.

The Polka Dot Jersey has not been won yet!

The White Jersey won by Tadej Pogacar for UAE Team Emirates.

Leading team: Jumbo-Visma

The Daily Challenge

They are starting in Copenhagen, the City of Fairy Tales, where Hans Christian Andersen wrote some of his most famous tales, the race will pass by the statue of the Little Mermaid.  In 1952 a film about the writer/poet was released featuring the song "Wonderful Copenhagen".

The cyclists will be undergoing individual time trials; your challenge is to spin as much as you can for the duration of Wonderful Copenhagen (that's about 2 minutes and 11 seconds!)

Suggested Fibre:  Our recommendation is to grab something from your Botany bag and get cracking!

What I did

We had a similar challenge last year where we had to spin as much as we could within a certain amount of time and measure it.  Well, I got into a right old tangle so I had no intention of doing today's challenge for that reason alone.  What I decided to do was to spin some Llandovery Whiteface Hill hand combed top that I prepared last week from part of a fleece that I finally managed to get hold of this year and it was the last one I needed to complete my British Breeds Project.  

So, 94g of hand combed top, spun to sport weight gives me 239m of finished yarn, which in terms of the TdF length calculations is 717m - 2 singles plus the plied length = 3 x finished yarn length.