Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2021 Stage 14

The Cycling: Stage 14 is 183.7km long and starts in Carcassone and ends in Quillan. Today's route contains two category 3 climbs and three category 2 climbs. Two more riders abandoned the race following yesterdays crash, they were not on the start line.  Bauke Mollema won the stage.  

Team Challenge: "At this stage the cyclists pass through Ariège which is named from the latin word 'Aurigier' which means to carry or contain gold.  It was common practice to weight fleeces down in streams so that their fibres could collect small pieces of gold as it flowed past.  Imagine pulling out a golden fleece! 

Today's challenge is to spin an animal fibre that doesn't come from sheep.  It could be mohair, alpaca, llama, yak... there are lots of options!".

What I planned to do and what I achieved:  I've ignored the challenge again and have spun the last of the Portland today, giving me 201m of yummy yarn and another 603m to add to the team.

I've enjoyed the tour so far and I've been watching the cycling and got quite into it, says the person who initially said "I'm not interested in the cycling".  I am really hoping that Mark Cavendish makes it through these next upcoming mountain stages so that he has a shot of beating the stage win record that he equalled yesterday.

All four finished skeins of Portland

Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2021 Stage 13

The Cycling: Stage 13 is 219.9km long and starts in Nîmes and ends in Carcassone. Today's route is heading west towards the Pyrenees and is the second longest on the tour and features just one categorised climb.  With 62km to go there was a crash towards the back of the peleton with some of the riders falling down a small ravine, at least one landed in a tree.  All got back up but 3 of them abandoned the race.  Mark Cavendish won the stage, equalling Eddy Merckx's record of 34 stage wins.  

Team Challenge: "We're past the halfway mark now, everyone!  If you've been spinning based on our little challenges you've probably got quite a bit of yarn around by now!

Today's challenge is all about finishing things off (like that trifle in the fridge, or that bar of chocolate in the cupboard).  If there are some things that need plying or some bobbins that need unwinding today is the day to get that done!".

What I planned to do and what I achieved:  I am still working on the Portland, boring and predictable, but I'm on a mission!  So, another skein finished, 239m so that's another 717m for the team total.

Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2021 Stage 12

The Cycling: Stage 12 is 159.4km long and starts in Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux and ends in Nîmes. Today's route has just one category 3 climb and a long uncategorised climb before a downhill rush to the finish line.  Nils Politt won the stage. 

Team Challenge: "If you've ever been to Nîmes you've probably seen the stunning neo-classical gardens (Jardins de la Fontaine) which have been built around a natural spring.  The gardens have been added to and repaired over the years to create an intriguing space of water, temples and trees.

On the topic of plants - today's challenge is to spin something containing plant fibres.  Flax, cotton, hemp and bamboo are all contenders for this!".

What I planned to do and what I achieved:  I'm not doing the challenge today, sticking strictly to my own goal and carrying on spinning the Portland.  I have washed and dried the skein I spun 2 days ago but I have spun up a second skein today.  There is a lot of lanolin in today's skein and you can feel the difference between the 2 skeins.  Today's skein is 231m, which adds another 693m to the team total.

Skein at the top is washed, skein at the bottom is unwashed.

Left is washed, right is unwashed.

Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2021 Stage 11

The Cycling: Stage 11 is 198.9km long and starts in Sorgues and ends in Malaucène. Today's route include a double ascent of Mont Ventoux and two category 4 climbs.  Wout van Aert won the stage. 

Team Challenge: "The finishing town today is Malaucène in the Vaucluse region; home of prime cherry production!  Almost 4,000 hectares of cherries are planted here producing an annual harvest of up to 20,000 tonnes - that is a lot of fruit!

Today's challenge is to spin something fruity; it could be a cherry-red top, something named after a fruit or you could experiment with banana or pineapple fibre".

What I planned to do and what I achieved:  I got back to working on spinning the Portland fleece that I combed.  I spun the second single and plied with the first, giving me a sport weight yarn 107g/248m, which is another 744m towards the team total.

I have a really tenuous link to the challenge in that Portland has the name of the drink Port in it and Port is made from fruit...

My first bobbin of Portland single, still more room yet!

Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2021 Stage 9

The Cycling: Stage 9 is 144.9km long and starts in Cluses and ends in Tignes.  Starting in the Arve valley there are another 5 climbs today and the finish is at high altitude, up in the mountains, at Tignes, a ski-resort.  Ben O'Connor won the stage.  

Team Challenge: "Today we have a mountain stage; it is going to be hard on some riders and a challenge for all of them.  In everything we do we have things that challenge us - even spinning!  

Your challenge today is the polar opposite of Stage 4: spin something you really don't like.  It could be a colour you can't stand, something with a texture that displeases you or that top that you wish you'd never bought!  This is a great opportunity to get this poor maligned fluff out of your stash and in to the world... you never know, you may like it!".

What I planned to do and what I achieved:  I plied my Herdwick this morning and got 125g/241m  of sport weight yarn.  That is another 723m for the team total.  

We have now collectively spun twice the length of Chesil Beach, to Portland and back, which leads me nicely into my 450g of hand combed Portland top and I've started to spin that.

This is just a small portion of the 450g of hand combed top.

Portland Fleece - Part II

I've thought about what I want to do with my Portland yarn.  I will dye the fingering weight yarn a different colour to the other 3 and the the 3 skeins of double-knit weight yarn will be used together on one project that I have already chosen, and so will dye these specific colours to be able to make that.

First up is the fingering weight yarn, which is 106g/369m.  I dyed this using Greener Shades dye at a dye depth of 1% in shade Sunrise Yellow.  A 1% dye depth means that you use 1g of dye for every 100g of yarn.

I had decided that I wanted to have a go at trying to obtain a set of peach yarns.  Peach can be a difficult colour to achieve, getting the tone right is a nightmare, nevermind having to try to get three different shades.  I was using my micro scales to weigh out the tiny tiny amounts of dye needed in the percentages of each colour required and a milk bottle screw top cap was "the bowl" to weigh the dye into.

This first yarn is 105g/300m, dyed using Greener Shades dye at a dye depth of 0.1%, made up of 75% Sunrise Yellow and 25% Sunset Orange.  A dye depth of 0.1% means that you use 0.1g of dye for every 100g of yarn and then this total amount of dye is split 75/25 between 2 colours.  Can you imagine weighing out 0.075g of dye and 0.025g of dye to make up that one-tenth of a gram of dye required!

This yarn is just as I had hoped for.

This yarn is 104g/317m, dyed using Greener Shades dyes at a dye dept of 0.2%, 75% Sunrise Yellow, 25% Sunset Orange.  Technically this is just a dark shade of the first yarn.  The colours and percentages used are exactly the same, its just the dye depth that is increased, which means that I use double the weight of dye for the same amount of yarn which produces as stronger/darker shade.   Not too bad, a tad orange, but maybe that was my dye weighing.  The micro scales that I have are not the best as a really really good accurate set cost a lot of money, which I hope one day I will be able to afford to get.

The final yarn in the set of three is 105g/296m and again dyed with Greener Shades dye at a dye depth of 0.2% made up of 75% Sunset Orange and 25% Ruby Red.  With hindsight I am thinking that instead of shifting dye colours and introducing Ruby Red that perhaps I should have just doubled the amounts of dye used on the previous 2 skeins again to make a 0.4% dye depth or even calculated for a 0.3% dye depth.  I am sure the contrast will work on my chosen project though.

 And finally a pretty photo to show all 3 colours off together.

Want to know how I made the yarn for this shawl?  Just click Portland Fleece Part I

Portland Fleece - Part I

I brought a kilo of Portland fleece online from Farnell Farm in Kent back in July 2014.  Portland is one of the many breeds that are classed as a conservation breed where they were close to extinction but efforts have been made to dramatically increase numbers and save the breed.

They are a small breed and the fleece washes up to be a warm shade of white.  There can be red kemp in the britch area of the fleece, and I did encounter some.  Kemp is a very coarse hair like fibre that you really want to remove during the preparation process.  The photo below shows a couple of locks, with a small amount of "seconds" attached, so called because it is the very short fibres produced when the shears go over a sheep a second time, shortening the fleece that is remaining on the sheep, and some will inevitably stick to the fleece as it is removed.  These are easily removed by wool combs during the preparation for spinning.

 The photo above, on the left, shows a clump of washed fleece with lots of red kemp in it and the photo above on the right shows a washed lock and an unwashed lock of fleece.

At the time of spinning the yarn my camera had broken and I didn't have a decent camera on my smart phone and so, unfortunately, there are no photos of the wool being combed, or of the combed nests or even of the spun un-dyed yarns.

I can tell you though that from my unwashed fleece weighed 1086g and after washing and removing a small amount of coarse fibre, including the red kemp, I was left with 675g of clean fleece ready to be prepared.  After combing I was left with approximately 420g of nice, clean, soft fibre to spin.  I spun 2-ply as usual and made 4 skeins of yarn, one in a fingering weight and 3 in double knit weights.  I decided to dye the yarn and will cover this in Part II.