Advent Calendar 2024 Day 25 - Merry Christmas Yoo-hoo

Well, I am one of those people in the world who have never seen Frozen.  I know of that infernal, annoying song, Let it Go, that an adult neighbour caterwauled along to at the top of her awful shrieking voice over and over and over for hours at a time for almost a month none stop before she moved onto another song and ruined that too.  Thankfully she was evicted almost 6 years ago, thankfully a year before Covid-19 lockdown, could you imagine being forced to stay inside with a neighbour like that for that amount of time?   

As soon as I started reading the description out to my family my husband started laughing because, apparently, he does know who this character is and he is immensely funny.  I had to find a clip online and watch to find out who he is and I like him.

All the information can be found in the first photo and if you click on the photo you can zoom in if you need to.

There isn't a string of lights in the clip that features Oaken and obviously they can't use images from the film due to Copyright Law so this is a fitting pattern to use.

I have undone the tightly wrapped little bundles and made them into braids to take any pressures off the fibres and also so that I can see the colours properly and feel the texture too.  This one is interesting.  Yes, there are lots of colours and there are other times when there are the same amount of colours in other blends and I go "eesh, no thank you" but these colours work together for me, although I think I might pair this with 50g of the dark teal Shetland that I just got from the Wool Show last week.

Advent Calendar 2024 Day 23 - Emmet

I have never heard of this character so I had to Google him and he is something to do with Jim Henson Studios and The Muppets as Kermit the Frog narrates the story.  All the information can be found in the first photo and if you click on the photo you can zoom in if you need to.

I don't think this design is based on the story but the colours in the design do seem to match the colours in the fibre.

I have undone the tightly wrapped little bundles and made them into braids to take any pressures off the fibres and also so that I can see the colours properly and feel the texture too.  This is not my favourite colour combination and, to be honest, its a bit too busy for my liking so I will need to tone it down somehow.

I did manage to find a photo online of the character of Emmet and the I can see how the colours match his clothing.

I've been to a Wool Show

Back in October I saw an advert on either Facebook or Instagram, can't remember which, for a Christmas Wool Show that was being held local to me in December with 85 stalls/Vendors.  I immediately wanted to go, especially as it is specifically related to Wool and not just all kinds of crafts.  I checked my husband's work roster and discovered that he would be working that weekend and it's not his thing anyway.  He would probably take an interest and look at some stuff but he would get bored after a while so I asked my two kids if they wanted to go, both said yes, so I pre-booked the tickets and got them cheaper than "on the door on the day".

The event was held at The National Conference Centre, just outside of Birmingham, over the weekend of 14th and 15th December.  We've been today, Saturday 14th December.

I had one thing in mind that I definitely wanted to look for and I told my kids that if they saw anything they wanted (within reason) that I would get it for them as part of their Christmas gifts because right now we haven't got them much because they've not really told us what they would like.  I say kids but they are 21 years old and nearly 18 years old and both heavily into creating art and doing wool crafts, but not spinning.

The thing that I had in mind that I definitely wanted was a braid of Turquoise Merino fibre for a specific spinning project.  I could have ordered this online from where I usually get most of my fibres from but because we were coming to this show I thought I'd wait and see.  The first stall that we came to had exactly what I was looking for and so I bought a braid of Turquoise Merino.  Any purchases after this were just kind of spur of the moment or "yeah, actually I could do with some of that".

As we were walking around we were chatting to some of the vendors a few small purchases were made with a couple of them for things like stitch markers that my kids wanted and a set of coloured metal crochet hooks so that I can teach my eldest to crochet at some point in 2025, my youngest already has some crochet skills and projects under their belt and they will continue to learn over time.  My eldest also chose a skein of yarn that I paid for and then she saw some more yarns that she liked at another stall and insisted on getting those herself.

I did do some more shopping for myself though.  I got a couple of braids of fibre from one vendor, which have turned out to be from World of Wool, as they do sell their products to other shops etc and they are Aurora Borealis by Sarah Jane and then Taurus from the Constellation range.

I also fell in love with some fibre art batts from Barn2YarnShop who put these together themselves.  I don't usually buy my fibre in batts so this will be fairly new to me but I have bought one before, years and years ago.  I will re-figure it out when I decide to spin it and open it all out.  I bought 3 because I instantly fell in love with the first one, loved the second and the third but noticed that they could kind of represent Santa doing his deliveries - clean to start, getting a little mucky and then really dirty by the end of the night.  Their names are Mrs Claus, Noel and New Year.  I could easily have bought some of the other batts they had too cos they were just so beautiful.

(c) Barn2YarnShop

(c) Barn2YarnShop

(c) Barn2YarnShop

What I might do with these 3 is to spin them so as to make yarns that could be used on one big project, almost like a long gradient type of thing, maybe even taking a little from each to make "linking yarns" to ease the transition from one to the next.  It's just a thought at the moment as I haven't undone them to see how each might work up.

My final purchase of the day were two skeins of solid dyed Shetland from A Little Bit Sheepish and purchased purely because I loved the depth and shade of colour and I could do with some plain dyed wool in my stash that isn't Merino.

 

I really enjoyed my day out browsing, chatting and shopping.  I might do it again one day.

Spinning up two braids of "Singer"

I am continuing to spin up some of the oldest fibres in my stash and this next one is from the monthly fibre club that I used to subscribe to.  It is from July 2019 and is called "Singer" and was based on the colours of the Singer sewing machines.  I had two braids of this, one that arrived at the time from the club and then I managed to get another at a later date via a fellow spinner who was downsizing and selling off some of their fibres.

I did consider ways in which to handle the colours which would include separating the colours out for a more interesting yarn but the problem with that is that the yellowy-gold colour is the Eri Silk and so by separating the colours this would isolate the Eri Silk away from the wool content and I didn't really want to do that.  What I decided to do was to split it in half along the length, pre-draft the fibre and just spin it as it comes and I done this for both braids.

Given that this fibre was from a monthly subscription and we were told that there was only ever one batch made at the wool mill that she used it surprised the hell out of me to discover that the two skeins made are different colours.

The braid that I had as part of the monthly subscription has spun up much darker and leaning more toward the green and black content than the braid that I got from a fellow spinner who was selling off stuff to downsize which leans more towards the red and gold content.

With this colour difference between the two skeins there is no way that I could work them together on the same project in a bid to blend them and neutralise any colour variation as it would just cause stripes and on the kind of things that I make stripes rarely work.  They will have to be worked on separate projects.

So, both come under the umbrella of "sport weight" and the darker/duller one (on the right) is 100g/331m and the other one is 106g/381m and the fibre content is 50% Shetland, 25% Corriedale, 25% Eri Silk.

Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2024 Stage 3

The Cycling: Stage 3 is 230.8km of a flat route that starts in Plaisance and ends in Turin.

The Daily Challenge: Beneath Turin there are supposedly three alchemical caves, one of which may hide the elusive Philosopher's Stone.  You can't visit these caves as their location is only ever known by three people at a time - and these people don't know each other so they can't share it!  Turin is shrouded in a lot of magical myth and mystery; we fell down the rabbit hold and had to be forcibly dragged out!  Our first non-spinning challenge of this tour!  Share your favourite myth/legend - it could be something local to your area, lesser-known, or just something that you like!

Suggested Fibre: Myth, a lightly textured amber-coloured blend of 33.3% Merino, 33.3% Tweed and 33.3% Bamboo (the remaining 0.01% is a mystery)

What I did

Well, the fibre I chose to start spinning yesterday was picked to fit in with today's challenge and Rudolph is certainly both a myth and a legend. I plied the two singles that I spun yesterday of Rudolph's Nose from the 2021 Advent Calendar.  The finished yarn is wonderfully soft and I have 101g/363m of sport weight yarn.  It is 25% Shetland Wool, 25% Tussah Silk, 25% Bamboo, 25% Bio-Nylon.  

Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2024 Stage 2

The Cycling: Stage 2 is 199.2km of a hilly route that starts in Cesenatico and ends in Bologne.

The Daily Challenge: Bologne is home to one of the oldest universities in the world. Alma Mater Studiorum was founded in 1088 making it 936 years old!  In the spirit of learning new things today's challenge is to use a new technique.  This could be for spinning, plying or drafting - it could even be something you've recently learnt and want to practice.

Suggested Fibre: Dusty Brick - a warm orange blend of 75% Shetland and 25% Bio-nylon.

What I did

I'm not doing today's challenge but I made a start on spinning a 100g braid of fibre called Rudolph's Nose, which was the Day 16 fibre in the first fibre Advent Calendar that World of Wool produced in 2021, and you can read about the fibre by clicking on the highlighted link.  The reason that I have picked this fibre is because it fits in perfect with tomorrow's challenge about myth's and legends, and of course Rudoph is a both a myth and a legend. The different fibres are very subtly slightly different shades, not massively noticeably, but probably just the difference on how the same dye looks different on different fibres types. Two of the fibres in the blend actually fit with today's suggested fibre of Shetland and Bio-Nylon and Rudolph's nose also has Tussah Silk and Bamboo.

I managed to spin two singles today and this will be ready to ply tomorrow.

Advent Calendar 2023 Day 22

The Tradition

Day 22 is called Dia De Las Velitas and the tradition comes from Colombia and means "The Day of the Little Candles" and it is celebrated on 7th December, which is the eve of  the Immaculate Conception.  On this night small candles and paper lanterns are lit and placed outside both a home and in public places, anywhere they can be seen in honour of the Virgin Mary and her Immaculate Conception.  It is not mandatory to work the next day, on 8th December and it is customary to hoist a white flag with an image of the Virgin Mary for the entire day on houses.  

The Fibre

The actual fibre content is 50% Shetland (Corn & Cinnamon), 30% Bluefaced Leicester (Lightning), 20% Sari Silk (Honeycomb & Goldrush).  We have blended together Shetland, Sari Silk and BFL.  The Shetland and BFL are very British fibres and this is a very bright blend, much like all the light given off by all those candles.  There's a lot of texture in here.  The Sari Silk brings streaks of golden yellow, there's some paler yellows, little pops of red in there as well and you can see a pale yellow from the Shetland and then a pale creamy white from the BFL.  Because these are British breeds, they're not as soft as Merino but do not let that put you off, they are absolutely lovely.  They have bulk and a good smoothness and they're not going to run away with you when you spin.  When you're spinning it you will find that the Sari Silk clumps a little bit but that's absolutely fine because it will give you texture, lumps and just make a really interesting yarn so that whatever you make from it afterwards will have just a little bit more character than it would otherwise.

My Thoughts

I really like this one and I think this could work with Day 19, Volcancitos as the colours are closer in those two than they are with Day 14, Misa de Gallo (Festival of the Rooster). The Sari Silk in this will make an interestingly textured yarn and I find Sari Silk easier to spin than Silk nepps, which I have been adding to a lot of my own blends lately.  This one is so different to how the camera on my phone captured the colours, that first photo looks so washed out and pale but thankfully all the colours show up in the photos taken with my Canon camera.

The information that has been printed on the bags is not always correct and there are no fibre content percentages, these have been provided on the chat boards.  The percentages that they gave on the chat boards seem to be correct, although the name of the day seems to read as Vetitas instead of Velitas, that cross on the second t certainly crosses through what should be an l.

What I have done with my bags is to write the actual fibre content on the bag using a gold gel pen in the gap immediately below the printed details, pretty much the only thing that will show up on black are the metallic gel pens.  This is why I have not taken "new" photos of the bags.

Spinning "Chocolate Box"

This is the second of four planned yarns that I am making using the last of the black Jacob wool that I have from fleece that I got several years ago.  For this one I topped up what was left on the bobbin of the black Jacob and then I spun up the 53g of "Selection Box" 50% Shetland, 25% Bamboo, 12.5% Flax, 12.5% Sari Silk from Day 20 of the Advent Calendar 2022.

I spun each of them separately and then just plied them together until all of the Selection Box was used up.  I used 52g of black Jacob with the 53g of Selection Box.  The fibre content is 50% Jacob, 25% Shetland, 12.5% Bamboo, 6.25% Flax, 6.25% Sari Silk.

I love the way that the colours of Selection Box are constantly changing like the flickering flames of a fire and plying that with the black Jacob really shows that up.  I've played around with the original name and the fact that it is now plied with the black/brown Jacob and called it "Chocolate Box".

This has turned out to be Double-Knit weight and there is 97g/214m

Advent Calendar 2022 Day 20

This one reminds me of one of the fibres, Red Canary, I had from when I used to have the monthly subscription from another supplier that I have already spun.  It's called Selection Box and is a blend of 50% Shetland Wool, 25% Bamboo, 12.5% Sari Silk, 12.5% Flax and I think this one will be blended with other stuff to make a much bigger finished skein of yarn.

Advent Calendar 2022 Day 3

Ok, this one is different.  I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this one.  It's pretty enough and is Christmas coloured but how will those colours look once its spun up, will have to be careful not to muddy the colours.  It's 100% Shetland Wool and is called Wreath.

Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2022 Stage 7 - Tomblaine to La Super Planche des Belles Filles (France)

Stage 7 of the Tour de France and it is a 176.3km long mountain race that starts in Tomblaine and ends in La Super Planche des Belles Filles (France)

The Map

Sights and points of interest along the route

At the start town of Tombaline there is an area of 17 hectares that have been declared as a Natural Sensitive Area not far from Tomblaine town centre where they hope to preserve an exceptional fauna and flora, including 144 animal species.  The Nancy-Essey Aeronautics Museum with its collection of restored Jet Fighter aircraft from 1948-1984.  There is also Tomblaine Farm, where Louis Pasteur stayed and worked on his project to pasteurise milk.

Along the route is the town of Art-sur-Meurthe, reputed to have maybe been the hometown of Jacques of Arc, Joan of Arc's father, but this cannot be proven.  The Charterhouse of Bosserville is a former Carthusian monastery (1666-1901) with a chapel at its heart.  It is now a vocational school.  There is also an 18th century manor house, Castle Art-sur-Meurthe nearby, which is a venue for cultural and festive entertainment.

Charterhouse of Bosserville

Other towns on the route are Dombasle-sur-Meurthe, Vitrimont and Lunéville, with the later being know for its embroidery which uses a mixture of pearls and sequins.  There is the Château de Lunéville, rebuilt in the early 1700's and burned down 7 times, the last time being 2nd/3rd January 2003 and restoration work has not quite finished.  Quite a way along the route from here is Gerbéviller Castle, built in the 17th century and still inhabited by Royalty, currently Prince Charles of Arenberg, of the House of Arenberg.

An example of Lunéville embroidery

The race then passes through the 13th century town of Rambervilliers with a town hall, Sainte-Lucy Castle and Saint-Libaire Church.  Next is the ancient castle town of Bruyères, known for its October 1944 battle against the Germans during WWII.  The small village of Champ-le-Duc with its 12th century Romanesque Notre-Dame Church and onto the town of Gerardmer and its nearby lake.  The mountain village of La Bresse is in the heart of the Ballons des Vosages Regional Nature Park with Lac des corbeaux (Raven's Lake), which is 600m long, 200m wide and 27 deep.  The riders also pass Cornimont, Ventron, Le Menil and Servance-Miellin, where you will find the Church of Our Lady of Assumption, Le Saut de L'Ognon (a dam) and an area of natural beauty Plateau des mille étangs (Plateau of a Thousand Ponds).

Plateau des mille étangs

The race continues through Fresse, Plancher-Bas and Plancher-les-Mines, the later of which is so called because of the silver mines that made it famous, and ends today at the summit of the mountain of La Super Planche des Belles Filles, which loosely translates as "the beautiful girls board" and is so named after a 1636 legend that states that young women would throw themselves into the water from the top of the mountain rather than suffer the abuse of Swedish attackers.  Locally there are the glassblowers of La Rochère, a local cherry brandy (Kirsch) brewery and Ray-sur-Saone Castle, which is currently being restored.

Who Won the Stage and Who Won What Jersey

The Stage winner is Tadej Pogacar for UAE Team Emirates

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

The Green Jersey won by Wout van Aert for Jumbo-Visma.

The Polka Dot Jersey won by Magnus Cort Nielsen for EF Education-Easypost/USA.

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

Combatif Award won by Simon Geschke for Cofidis/FRA

Leading team: Ineos-Grenadiers

The Challenge: The starting point of today's stage is Tomblaine, but our interest lies 3 miles away in Nancy.  This historic prefecture's heraldry shows a thistle, a plant which is quite popular in heraldry.  It represents a strength and assertation that if you mess with a thistle, you're going to feel the thorns.  We've found the coat of arms for Huddersfield and, naturally, it involves sheep - much squishier than a thistle and right up our street!

Today's challenge is multi-faceted!  Spin a plant fibre (we don't advise thistle, maybe have a go with nettle!) OR colours that you associate with thistles 💜💚.  The second part is to do a little research and find out what the coat of arms/crest is for a place that is of interest to you.  We'd love to see what you find, but remember that you don't need to share personal details.

Suggested Fibre:  If you've bought the special TDF blend Thistle-do, now is the time to use it!

What I did

Well, I am well aware of the coat of arms of my city, Birmingham, the female figure represents arts & crafts and the male figure represents industrialism.

So, the spinning.  Well yes, I did buy Thistle-Do.  It's 80%  Shetland Wool, 20% Himalayan Nettle the colours are purple, green and white.

I decided not to pre-draft this one, just spin it from the end as I thought that way I could just follow each colour as it drafted in and have larger splodges of each colour.  I also thought that I was spinning it quite fine, but it turns out that this was not the case as its quite a heavy, dense yarn and not as soft as I had hoped it would be. Its not nasty but I think I could have spun it different and got a softer finished yarn.

The final yarn is double-knit, possibly pushing towards worsted weight, but definitely a heavier double-knit weight.  It's 97g/160m which in terms of the TdF length calculations is 480m - 2 singles plus the plied length = 3 x finished yarn length.

Advent Calendar Day 16

Ooooh it's red and Christmassy and called "Rudolph's Nose" and is another Advent Calendar Exclusive fibre.  It's a blend of 25% Shetland, 25% Bamboo, 25% Tussah Silk and 25% BioNylon.  Today's festive saying is "I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus", sing it Michael, sing it MJ.

She sells sea shells...

I bought this fibre direct from my previous supplier that I no longer use and I think it may have been some kind of stock clearance or something because I bought this in August 2018 but this fibre was from February 2015.  

Its a larger amount of fibre than usual and the description from the website is "Gradient Packs are a clever way of creating a subtle gradient skein of yarn.  Careful design means you can just sit down and spin and get a great result. 140g of fibre designed to give you seamless colour transitions.  I take some shades of dyed wool, combine them with natural colours of wool and other non-wool fibres.  There are 5 main shades in each gradient, but in addition there are smaller amounts of transition colours.  This means that you get gradual shifts in colour, rather than broad stripes.  The colourways are all limited edition, so if you see a colour you like it's best to get it while you can.  The good news however, is that I keep introducing new and exciting shades."

I have always wanted to try one of her gradient packs but usually as soon as she releases them they are gone so fast and it usually works out that I don't have spare money to treat myself at the right time but this time I did finally get one and its a really nice colourway.  I did manage to buy a second gradient pack in an unusual but striking colourway last year too so I will have that to spin up in the future as well.  The colour is "Sea Shell" and the fibre content is 50% Merino, 25% Shetland, 25% Seacell.  I split each little fibre bundle into two and spun each single the same and plied them together.  The final yarn is spun to sport weight and is 139g/302m and its really soft.

Shetland Sheep

The Shetland breed of sheep has to be one of the UK's oldest breeds of sheep with records dating back as far as the 8th century.  They have been developed over the years by the Shetland Islanders, with the belief that these sheep have genetics from the sheep that the Romans bought with them about 2000 years ago and also genetics from sheep that the Vikings and Scandinavian people would have bought with them about 1500 years ago, and then of course you have the more recent influence of the past couple of hundred years where there have been significant changes made in shepherding with the introduction of selective breeding and "seasonal breeding".

The Shetland sheep, at the time of writing, is in the Rare Breeds Survival Trust category 6: "Other UK Native Breeds" (over 3000) registered breeding ewes.  They are found across the Shetland Islands, obviously and as the name suggests, but are also across the UK.  They are well developed for life in the harsh island environment.

The Shetland sheep is a small, fine boned sheep but when it comes to colour, erm yeah, WOW, there are an amazing 11 defined colours and 30 or so different markings.  Rams usually have two rounded horns but can also be multi-horned or have no horns at all.

So, the 11 defined colours are: 

1. White
2. Light Grey
3. Grey
4. Emsket (dusky blue/grey)
5. Shaela (dark steely grey)
6. Black
7. Musket (grey/brown, light greyish brown mixed light and brown fibres)
8. Mioget (yellow/brown, lightest brown with warm overtones)
9. Fawn
10. Moorit (tan/brown)
11. Dark Brown

In 1994, the 9 rarest colours out of the 11, totalled just 214 sheep.  Upon realising the potential loss of such a great natural resource breeders have since been breeding Shetlands specifically for colour but these colours are still at risk of being lost.

The names for the markings on the sheep are traditional names and not mutually exclusive, a sheep can have more than one of these markings types and therefore more than one name.  This is in addition to the colour name. I have put my old secretarial/PA presentation creating skills to good use and created this table in Powerpoint and then saved it as a picture, as this is better than just a typed list.

They produce a smallish size fleece of usually around 1-2kg in weight.  Depending on the strain of Shetland they either do or do not have the ability to naturally shed their fleece.  There are also three different fleece types: 

• True double coated.  Short, fine undercoat and long hair outercoat. Easy to separate the different fibre types.
• Transitional double coated. Even mix of fine, short fibres and longer, coarser fibres.  Difficult to separate the different fibre types.
• Single coated.  Short stapled, fine, crimpy wool that is fairly even throughout the fleece.

Traditionally, double coated Shetlands would be plucked (or rooed) by hand as the outercoat sheds at a different time to the undercoat and this was the easiest way to separate the different fibre types.  To some extent this does still happen but usually in small non-commercial flocks, small holdings, small specialist flocks, that kind of thing, where they may have the time to do with this with such small numbers of sheep.  Most Shetlands are sheared annually now, whether they have the capability to shed naturally or not.

The staple length will vary depending on the type of fleece that you have.  Generally they are 2-4.5 inches (5-11.5cm).  Spinning counts are usually in the 20-30 micron range but really fine fleece can be 10-20 microns with the coarsest outercoat on a dual coated fleece spinning in at 30-60 microns but most people will assume an average of 23 microns. 

Regardless of the fleece type it will be dense with locks that are usually wider at the base and generally pointed making them like triangles.  Fine fibres are crimped, coarser fibres are more wavy.  Shetland fleece have a tendency to be very greasy and this will affect the colour of the fleece that you think you have.  Washed fleece will be a lot lighter and less yellow in colour so you won't know what you really have until its cleaned.  White fleece is often dyed and the colours are most often used in their natural state but they can be overdyed.

Depending on the fleece type and whether you want to keep both fibre types together in regards to the dual coated fleece you can spin from the lock, flick, card or comb.  Combing will separate the fibre types very nicely and all spinning will be relatively smooth with the finished yarns leaning towards the feel of its coarsest fibres.

There are plenty of "Shetland Wool" yarns available that have been commercially spun and this creates yet another enigma. When yarn is labelled as "Shetland Wool" it does not automatically mean that it comes from the Shetland sheep.  The Shetlanders have the right to label and market ANY wool from ANY sheep breed that has been raised and kept on the Shetland Islands as "Shetland Wool" even those claiming to be 100% Shetland wool might not be from the Shetland breed of sheep.  If you are buying commercially spun Shetland wool you will have to check the labels very carefully and maybe do some research to check exactly what the components are.

Given that there are different types of coats on this breed of sheep and the fact that "Shetland Wool" might not be from a Shetland breed of sheep if you have ever encountered a rough feeling Shetland wool jumper and have written the breed off as horrible, I implore you to have another go with Shetland wool but perhaps research which products are from the soft wool type of Shetland sheep first.

As far as working with pure Shetland wool from the actual Shetland sheep breed it will depend on the type of fleece you've created your yarn from.  It is very versatile and fine yarns are great for lace shawls and the finest yarns are used to make Shetland lace ring shawls, which are so delicate that a large one can be drawn easily through a wedding ring and are ethereal and far sturdier than they look.  Heavier yarns are also great for shawls, sweaters and all sorts of items, including Fair Isle knitting, which is part of the Shetland Islands, and can be knit using the natural colours as well as a range of colours that have been dyed.

I have bought this breed in as 100g of pre-prepared fibre in the natural moorit colour.  I also had a 25g sample that I got with another pack from the same supplier so split the 100g in half to make two shorter lengths and then with the 25g I split it down along the length to make two thinner long lengths and then pulled it out until it was the same length as the 50g half.  I then pre-drafted the fibre together.  This evens out any slight difference in colour between them.

My finished yarn is of medium quality to the touch of the hand, squishy and bouncy and I do like the colour.  I have 114g/227m of sport weight yarn that is perfectly suitable for next to skin wear.  My knitted piece for the project took 19g/36m so I have a decent amount left to do whatever with.

Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2021 Stage 5

The Cycling: Stage 5 is a Time Trial and is just 27.2km long and starts in Changè and ends in Laval.  The 30 year old French lady who caused the big crash on Saturday, Stage 1, has finally handed herself in and is currently in custody at a police station in  Landerneau. On Sunday, the Finistère gendarmie announced the opening of a judicial investigation into "involuntary injuries with disability not exceeding three months by a deliberate violation of an obligation of safety or prudence". She could face up to two years in prison and a fine of $35,000.  The race organisers are no longer looking to prosecute her but she's not off the hook yet as any of the riders could still sue her themselves due to injuries, damaged and wrecked bikes etc, especially the three that had to abandon the race due to injuries received, medical bills, loss of earnings and future earnings as they will probably have to pull out of other races too until injuries are healed. Tadej Pogačar won the stage.  

Team Challenge: "Time Trial - today it is just you and the clock.  The fastest time trial that the Tour de France has seen was set by Rohan Dennis in 2015; 9 miles in 14 minutes and 56 seconds.  Now that is a lot of spinning!

Your challenge today is to see what length single you can spin in 14 minutes and 56 seconds.  No plying necessary!  On your marks, set, spin!".

What I planned to do and what I achieved: I am doing the challenge today, whoooo hooooo.  I am spinning some Shetland in natural shade Moorit, 100g bump and 25g that was in British Breeds Sample pack, both from World of Wool.  I split the larger amount into two by holding the two ends together, finding the middle and separating into two equal amounts at that point.  Then with the sample amount, I split that into two the same way but then stretched each out to the same length as the larger bumps and spun both the sample and the larger bump at the same time in each case so that the fibres mixed.

I managed to spin 32.56m in the 14 minutes 56 seconds allowed, timed on my stop watch.  Taking the single off the bobbin onto my niddy-noddy, tying it, taking it off the niddy-niddy to measure it and then feeing it back onto the bobbin was great fun, NOT!  The issue is that there is so much energy in the spun single that it just becomes one big twisty-twirly-knotting-up-on-itself mess.  When you ply with another single, which means you twist the fibre in the opposite way to which it is twisted as a single, it removes some of that energy.

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Once the measured single was back on the bobbin I was able to finish spinning that half of the fibre and then spin the second single.

August's Fibre has arrived - Peterloo

When the letter came a few days ago I didn't know what to expect other than blue and white.  Its quite nice, almost like a denim look to it and if you look really close it almost like there is a pink tinge to some of it.  Its 50% Shetland Wool, 25% New Zealand Wool, 25% Linen so its not the softest wool but she did say that it would be quite stiff until its worked.

The Blue Llanwenog

Last year I bought a Llanwenog sheep fleece, split it into four amounts, left one undyed and then dyed the other 3 amounts in 3 different colours.  This is the blue part of the fleece that started out at 400g and now that it's been combed I only have 153g left due to some of it felting, and an amount of coarse fibres which I have removed.  That is a lot to lose, more than 50% but I am fussy and would rather not spin rubbish and waste my time spinning rubbish.

It is pretty as it is but I wanted to make it something special and to add things to it that would help to soften it a little.

I went and raided and supplies cupboard and came out with all these that work well with the turquoise blue Llanwenog and they come from various supplies I've brought over the last few months, mostly small amounts with one or two larger amounts thrown in.

I split everything in two and blended each half on my blending hackle to get this fabulously interesting fibre ready to spin.

I'm really happy how this has turned out, very interesting.  I have two skeins of double knit weight yarn, 99g/284m and 96g/262m and the fibre content is about 65% Llanwenog Wool, 12% Merino Wool, 10% Tussah Silks, 4.5% Sari Silk, 3% Bluefaced Leicester Wool, 2% Alpaca, 1.5% Shetland Wool, 1% Linen (Flax), 1% Sea Cell.