A little photoshoot this morning! I had to run some fibre through the drum carder before I could spin today – it’s the pink and grey batt (WoW “Something Fishy”, Corrie/Sari) on the left. That was a single run through the carder. I have already spun 50g of this top without carding (3rd from left), and I have 2 more bumps left. I’ll send one through the drum carder twice, and the 3rd three times. I have vague plans of knitting this into a “texture fade” (as opposed to the usual colour fade) item to demonstrate the effect of carding. Because this colourway is sold out at WoW, I’ll probably have to bulk the project out with some John Arbon Knit By Numbers in a toning shade, like the mini-skein 4th from the left.
Second from the left is a 50g bump of the original top – see how clumpy-lumpy it is!?!
At the top, and in close-up below to avoid distraction, is my Day 1/2 spin of WoW’s TdF mystery spinalong, “A Clue”, wound off onto a storage bobbin with my trusty drill. It’s lovely bits of green, brown and cream that has come out as little runs of barberpoling between all the constituent colours. I’ll probably 2-ply it in the next day or two.
Easing into TdF 26 with #1 of World of Wool’s Golden Fleece – A Spinning Mystery! I still have one bobbin to clear to have a full set free, but whaddever.
For your delectation, I just have pics of the stash I’m hoping to spin (big basket) and some extras in case I blitz right through that (small basket). Sorry the fibre is mostly bagged up but it’s monsoon season here in Darkest Ireland…
Big basket is my TdF stash, small basket is extra stash in case I get through the big basket.Top layer of big basket
On the top layer of the picnic basket, we have World of Wool’s TdF offering, Golden Fleece – a Spinning Mystery (unopened black boxes), and about 150g of WoW Something Fishy (Corrie/Sari) from their 2025 Advent Calendar. There’s also 50g of Something Fishy already spun up beforehand.
This is a bit of a departure for me. Normally, I just spin the fibre as it comes, and end up with fairly fine singles. But this blend of pink Corriedale and beige sari silk absolutely would not cooperate. The result is that the fine Corriedale single is interrupted by lumps and clots of sari. I’m surprisingly okay with this. I am thinking of breaking out the drum carder to blend the remaining 150g better. Maybe one run-through for the first 50g, 2 for the second, and 3 for the third, so I have a gradation?? I also found a John Arbon Knit By Numbers shade, KBN017, which is identical:
John Arbon 4-ply yarn, Knit By Numbers KBN017 – pink and beige BFL/Falklands Merino
I might attempt a texture fade (rather than a colour fade) with this and the KBN. I’ll think more on that.
Then, to the bottom layer. Here we have John Arbon Knit By Numbers 74 ‘Burgundy’ (Merino, 200g) and Devonia ‘Furbelows’, a mix of black and green (50% Exmoor Blueface / 30% Bluefaced Leicester / 20% Romney, 200g); World of Wool’s Indulgent collection, Apple Pie (white with bits of green), Rhubarb Crumble (coral), Eton Mess (red), and Tart (pinkish purple and blue) (Polwarth with nepps, 200g ea); and as palate cleansers, 50g each of WoW Irish top in black, and Polwarth tops in white and grey. I spun up some WoW Indulgent Spotted Dick earlier this year (not pictured) and absolutely loved it so I had to get the rest.
Bottom layer of picnic basket
The backpack basket contains the fibre I might get to if I spin REALLY fast, otherwise it’s scheduled for the Tour Des Femmes and/or La Vuelta. 800g of World of Wool ‘Cover Girl’ (37.5% Merino / 37.5% Bamboo / 12.5% Red Eri Silk/ 12.5% Wool & Viscose Nepps), a peachy-pinky blend with touches of green that just scream “summer top”;
Backpack basket
and 4 space-dyed braids from Steph’s Crafty Bits on Etsy AGAIN, after she persuaded me to buy a blue (bleurgh!) braid last year. There’s a lovely purple and green 100% Polwarth braid that reminds me of crocuses, another in shades of green, an autumnal green and yellow 100% Falkland Merino braid, and another Polwarth braid in reds and blues (bleurgh!). I don’t know how she does it…
Blue-yellow 2 ply fractal spin from a space-dyed braid (Unresolved School Uniform Trauma), 642m (roughly 2/12Nm, lace/sock);
Yellow-purple 2 ply fractal spin from a gradient-dyed braid (Golden Sunset), Aran-weight, 156m (abt 2/3Nm);
2 skeins of chain-plyed warping yarn from a cone (World Of Wool), over-spun for strength, Aran weight, for weaving with the orange centre-pull ball which I spun from a batt during TdF23 – procrastination much?
Still to come – more space-dyed braids from stephscraftybits! I’ve just started the sugared-almond Jean Harlow one, which is also coming up rather fine. And if you’ve been paying attention, I did say “more braidS”, plural.
Yes, I went off and bought another 3 braids and a batt from stephscraftybits. A bottle-green/wine combo on Bergschaf, which I have named The Parting Glass – I’ll definitely at least start this.
Then, this cheerful 100% Lonk braid, described as green/red/pink. The green is barely there, and a bit browny. I might take it out when I unwind the braid, depending on whether it looks okay.
The third, God forgive Steph for inflicting her irresistible colour choices on me, is BLUE, green and grey, on Charollais fleece. Charollais is a fibre I’ve wanted to try for a while, that’s not why I bought it. I… just… liked it??
The batt is a mystery blend of black, white and grey fibres – probably merino. They’re laid one on top of the other, so it’ll probably spin up as grey. It’ll be a relief from all this blue…
This lovely yellow-purple gradient (craftwithcolour on Etsy) has lots of tweedy nepps and wanted to be thick-and-thin, which is very much not me, but you gotta work with what you have. I have no idea what to do with it when it’s done – it’s not the kind of yarn I usually knit with… This is the first half completed.
Speaking of not me, the blue/yellow Corriedale is spinning up fine and taking forever. I’m about halfway through the first bobbin’s worth of flooff. I have decided to name it Unresolved School Uniform Trauma.
I have only fun stuff to spin this time. The sparkly Golden Sunset braid from craftwithcolour is first up. I didn’t get around to it on TdF or TdFF, partly because it arrived late, having to travel with my niece when she came home from uni, but mostly because I loaded up on extra spins.
Then, because I enjoyed spinning the rose/olive Merino Tencel braid from stephscraftybits, I bought some more of her braids! One is a Merino Tencel braid in sugared-almond colours that remind me of Jean Harlow’s evening dresses, rose, brown, grey and powder blue.
The second is 100% Bergschaf in bottle-green and wine. I’ve never spun Bergschaf before – no idea what to expect there. Some people say it’s soft, others that it’s coarse. The braid itself doesn’t feel particularly soft to me, but not so bad that I’d put it in the to-be-socks box.
And the third… is blue. Royal & Prior uniform blue. And yellow, obviously. But the blue is nonetheless precisely the colour of the R&P gymslip that I had to wear 5 days a week for 5 years of my life, and which I hated with a passion that is unmatched to this day. But I kept coming back to this braid. It talked to me. It whispered that it wasn’t really that bad – just misunderstood – and wouldn’t it make a beautiful plaid shawl if I wove it on a continuous bias tri-loom…
So yah, I have that to look forward to…
The Golden Sunset and blue/yellow are divvied up into 1/2, 1/4 and 2 x 1/8 parts for fractal spinning. This time, I actually weighed everything to ensure they all worked out to be the appropriate weights when divided. Fiddly, and my scale isn’t cooperative with low-density volumes, but I got there. It’ll be interesting to see if it helps!
I couldn’t have imagined this three years ago, when, as a very new spinner, I joined my first TdF, but I have blown all my expectations out of the water!
My TdF25 aim was to work through a 400g 75% Hebridean/25% bio-nylon blend, with a couple of fractal spins as palate cleansers. I thought this would take me all of TdF and maybe Tour des Femmes too. However, I blasted through all the Hebridean blend midway though the second week.
So I added another 400g blend of 75% Herdwick/25% bio-nylon to my task list. And last night – or possibly early this morning – I plied the last two bobbins of that!
I only finished one of the fractal spins. I intended to continue through Tour des Femmes anyway, so I’ll work on the second braid, plus a third that showed up in the mail last week.
What has stunned me is the sheer quantity I’ve spun, without pushing myself hard. On my first TdF, I learned that some people’s goal was to spin as many yards or metres as the cyclists covered in miles or kilometres, calculated in either completed yarn, or as individual singles+plying. “Huh”, thought I. “I’ll never get anywhere near that!” So here are my data for TdF25:
I haven’t had time yet to measure the Herdwick blend, but it must be at least as long as the Shetland blend, as it wanted to spin up finer. So a guess-timate of my totals is 2331.8m in completed yarns, and 7156m as separate singles + the plying.
This year’s Tour de France covers 3,338.8 km. Ahahaha!
TdF25 haul!
Also, a pic of Sir Lasair in full winter plumage as penance for blowing my own trumpet here!
I did indeed race through my Hebridean/bionylon blend which I thought would take up the whole of TdF! By Monday I had 6 skeins plied, then washed and thwacked on Tuesday, and drying since. I suppose I could have measure the length, but I want to put them all on a single cone using my Royal cone winder – and the cone-hats have yet to arrive.
So, that stalled, I hoked out another 400g sock blend, Herdwick/bionylon. I wanted thick welly socks, but the Herdy isn’t cooperating, as I believe is normal for the breed. Instead of a Sport-cum-DK weight, it is stubbornly coming in as Fingering when 2-plied. It’s a bit like spinning Brillo pads, so hopefully they’ll be sturdy even if thin. In the background are a couple of blackcurrant liqueurs, vodka and whisky, which I started the same day! I just have one dwarf blackcurrant bush. This year it produced over 2kg of fruit!
I finished the first fractal spin yesterday! The bobbins are waiting to be plied, and Sir Lasair Lothbrok the Loud approves 🙂
I’ve plied and skeined the first 2 bobbins of Hebridean/bio-nylon!
They still need to be washed and thwacked, after which I’ll measure the length.
I mentioned that I’m drafting the fibre in a crippled Long Draw, so I’m expecting a fluffier yarn. As result, I expect the plied yarn to be thicker than normal sock yarn. This is fine because I’m envisioning Sport or DK-weight welly socks, not dress-shoe socks. These socks are going to be warm.
The blend is a custom blend that I ordered from World of Wool – 80% natural Hebridean, 20% black bio-nylon. It’s quite soft, but has a sturdy feel too it. I’m hoping the bio-nylon adds more strength. I am producing fairly consistent singles, after a wobbly start. I think once washed and thwacked, any inconsistency will disappear…
Yesterday I filled roughly half an EEW 6 bobbin with my Hebridean blend top! I was using a mongrel long draw: partly English, partly supported (mainly to coax more fibre into the thread when it was getting too fine), and not all that long due to my osteoarthritis. I call it my Cripple Crutch Drag Til It Hurts Draw…
These bobbins are BIG. They can hold 200g (8oz for the colonials) of singles. That means there’s close to 100g on it already. I bought 500g of this blend originally, and spun a sample to see what it was like. The sample is somewhere in my completed-spins bin. The bag of fibre now weighs around 300g, minus the sample and what’s on the bobbin. I thought it would take all of TdF, including the Tour Des Femmes, to slog through this fibre, but I’ve spun about 20% of it in a few hours, and have a (presumably) 100g sample already done??? This does not compute… I’m going to have to re-jig my TdF goals if this keeps up.
I also made a start on my 3-ply fractal spin on Blaise, my Herring wheel. That was not as epic as the Shetland. The fibre, which is sumptuous, is a bit compacted from being in the braid, so it’s fighting me all the way so far – snapping, not coming out easily despite pre-drafting, and of course I’m not used to the side-to-side drafting necessary to maintain colour separation – I’ve only done one fractal spin before. Blaise can be a little temperamental, too. Sometimes she sings along producing invisible gossamer strands fit for an emperor, then suddenly it’s DK singles or nothing and don’t even think about plying – this lady is not for turning (anti-clockwise).
Impressive, huh?
I should add something about the decision to do a 3-ply fractal spin. There are basically 2 reasons:
I tried to pull the released braid into 2 sections, but it insisted on parting into 3*.
A 3-ply fractal spin requires 4 bobbins – 1 for each single, and 1 to ply onto. By sheer coincidence, Blaise has 4 bobbins – 1 original, and 3 purchased recently from Frank Herring & Sons.
So obviously, it was a thoroughly-researched, analytically considered, and deliberative choice, as is usual for me.
Stop laughing, there at the back!
I did consider dividing the 2nd length into 2, and the 3rd into 4, before wising up. Instead, Bobbin 2 will consist of 3 x 1/6ths, and Bobbin 3 will have 3 x 1/9ths, as is tradition.
*: This is often the case with commercial combed top. The mills have 3, umm, extruders where the final top is spat out. These are positioned close together in a triangular shape, so the top comes out as one length, even though it’s really 3. IYSWIM.
thornmaiden.com 