Week 31 of 2025

Tour de Fleece ended today, and these are my results -

I wanted to spin 20-30 minutes everyday from July 5th to August 3rd (the dates of Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes), and I did that and more some days. This is my 11th TdF in 13 years.

I ended up spinning four different projects. From left to right - a skein of super fine merino, a skein of a merino/nylon sock blend, 4 skeins of BFL (for a sweater), and a local merino that I blended with Angora and a few other types of fibres. I dyed all the fibre.

The final results are 555g (19.6 ounces) of yarn, 1,707m (1,867yds) of yarn, and 3,754m (4,105yds) of singles spun.

Photos from Around -

Smokey sunrise over the veggie garden.

The chickens really enjoy garden veggies.

The little chicks are almost 2 months old and live outside now (in their own area next to the big hens).

All the best!♥︎

Week 29 of 2025

This week I finished spinning a skein of yarn -

 It is a 3 ply, Merino/Nylon blend for socks. It is my second skein of yarn for Tour de Fleece.

Photos from Around -

We are eating quite a bit from the garden now.

Lovely Gazanias.

The cats sleeping in the best seats in the sunroom.

Molly prefers to sit in the little truck, hoping for a ride.

First honey of the year.

The little chicks went outside for the first time this week (5 weeks old).

Around nine every evening they get so loud - we don't know why. It is great watching them grow, each one looks different now and it is easy to tell them apart (Clover, Marigold and Daisy - flower names for these three).

 

All the best!♥︎

Tour de Fleece Results and More

Tour de Fleece was last month and these are my results -

I spun everyday for 24 days. 

I spun 784g of fibre and ended up with 2,506m of yarn

I am currently knitting a Nightshift with some of the yarn.

I recently finished #9 of 12 handspun socks for the year.

I also finished knitting another Easy (my 4th - love these).

Photos from Around - 

The garden is doing well - canning and freezing season is well under way.

Honey is also flowing- we are up to 27 litres of honey so far and expecting one more harvest before settling the bees in for the winter.

Morning walk.

Fresh vegetables from the garden always impress me with their beauty.

Miss Maggie has her favourite spot (can you see the 'J' on her belly - I think she was destined to be my first pet).

She comes for walks - panting away in the heat.

She doesn't take any nonsense from her best friend.

She also didn't like when this little one came.

After watching our security camera footage we saw that a lady had shaken this little cutie from a box into the ditch along the highway behind our house. I had seen a car slowly drive up, turn around, and stop, then speed off. I assumed that they were lost and checking the map. When this one caused such a commotion for our pets I checked the camera (it has a better vantage point).

He was only slightly harmed by Miss Maggie, the dog is gentler - found him and laid down beside him until we came. He has since been taken to a shelter (cost me $100 - shelters are overrun after the pandemic), and he has been adopted. I hope life is better for him now. 

I already look after one cat that someone dropped off, and can't take them all in.

I don't know the people's circumstances, but I still can't believe they thought leaving this little cutie to fend for itself was the only option.

Miss Molly running in the tall grass yesterday morning.

All the best!♥︎

Day 2 - Tour de Fleece 2021

Last month was Tour de Fleece (an online spinning event that takes place at the same time as the Tour de France).

My goal was to spin everyday.

I didn't get as much spun as in previous years, but at least I met my goal.

314g of fibre spun, 2135m of singles spun, resulting in 793m of yarn.

The first is a 3 ply sock yarn (a BFL and nylon blend).

This one is just the start of a large spin, with some local fibre that I blended some sari silk and silver angelina into one of the plies.

All the best!♥︎

Fibre Prep

Tour de Fleece (a yearly online spinning event held during Tour de France) started this weekend, and last week I prepared some fibre to spin.  One of the Ravelry groups that I belong to suggested a challenge to blend and spin 5 different fibres together.

I chose some linen, tussah silk, soy silk (that I had previously dyed pink), plus small amounts of sari silk and gold angelina.

I blended it two times on the drum carder.

Resulting in a batt that I dizzed to make it easier to spin - dizzing just pulls the fibres through a small hole, this one is a button.

I ended up with about 100g ready to spin.

Almost finished the first half.

Around the farm-

crop duster spraying the fields

wild roses at the edge of the road

the little nest now has 6 eggs

I learned how to mow with the tractor this week

The little nest is just to the right of the arm of the tractor in the above photo (the grass is longer because we mow around it). It doesn't seem the safest spot to make a nest, but it has been there for almost a month so far, the tiny bird is always on the nest and the number of eggs keeps growing. We are waiting to see when they hatch because the one large egg can't be her's - she is a small type of sparrow, and we think the large egg is a cowbird's egg.

Yesterday we had a big thunderstorm - the power was out for about 7 hours, but it was interesting to watch.

great clouds

lots of hail - super noisy in the sun room

All the best!♥︎

Tour de Fleece 2018

Tour de Fleece finished on Sunday (a three week spinning event held during Tour de France).

This year I spun over a kilo of yarn! All from raw fleeces that I was given, and prepared myself.
All 2 ply, about fingering weight yarn.

710g, 2441m of yarn with high twist. I plan on dyeing this for a weaving project.

This was part of a brown fleece that was lighter. 161g, 361m that I spun in the reverse direction than normal for a twined knitting project.

After cleaning and combing the fleece, I drum carded some white fleece with a small amount of brown fleece. 92g, 265m.

80g, 210m. I have no plans for these last two skeins.

I really enjoyed working with different coloured, natural fibre this year.

All the best!♥︎