Tour de Fleece

I don't know what I imagined Tour de Fleece would be about and as I have no interest at all in the Tour de France then I do wonder why I joined it !!
Still as I spin every day I thought I might as well. I did start as I meant to go on with fleece but after seeing such beautiful pictures on Ravelry of all the coloured yarns that folks were doing I succumbed to doing dyed rovings.
I am also playing on the new wheel so it was good to see what I could turn out on it, plus I have a new drum carder too to try out , a Louet Junior
So here as requested and promised is a photo of the Louet S15 and on the reverse is the metal hologram disc which weights the wheel and which has picked up colour from the flash on the camera




So what have I created on it this week ?
First of all I started on a gorgeous fleece I bought at Woolfest, its a Teeswater X Jacob and it so silky and lustrous. I have spun this in aran weight for a waistcoat

Then I had a play and did a navajo plyed fine single and then a thick and thin one with the same roving .

As I said I have a new drum carder as well. Am I happy with it ? well yes and no. I can see that it does blend better than the Barnett I have but I reckon the Barnett is better for fleece . Yet again not all fleece though as I tried this very fine cria alpaca fleece I had and the Louet was far better in prepping it.I was going to get rid of one but it seems I need them both , well for now any way !!
I guess overall I still think the Barnett is better , until I do find another ;)Wish we had the choices folks in the US have ; would love to try a Pat Green or the Straunch .

Right back to reality .....here is a small skein of the alpaca and again I have spun it in various thickness laceweight
a) to see if the wheel can do it and b) to see how the softness of the alpaca holds out . It held up really well even spun super fine and the only problem I had was in washing it as I nearly felted the skein. I didn't pre wash this fleece ,dirty though it was as I feared it would felt . So I will just have to cope with really dirty hands when I spin the rest;)


On the wheel now are some drum carded batts which have been chucked on lumps, bumps and all to use in weaving and will be plyed tonight .
I feel I have given this wheel a good test run this week and I still love it and I am still surprised at how a very simple wheel is so versatile .

I can't forget my Suzie though and this week I plyed the laceweight yarn I spun from Freyalyn'srovings bought at Wonderwool Wales. The biggest skein comprises of two rovings, one is finest English wool and its plyed with a kid mohair roving . I didn't spin the mohair as fine so had a lot of the other left !! 576yds on the large skein and 364 yds on the smaller.

I have realized that I have too many blue yarns and garments and that this rich plummy pinky shade actually suits me so I am going to do more in this shade and feel the urge to get the dyepots out soon .

I have also since Woolfest spun over a kilo of Alpaca roving from the lovely John Arbon at UK Alpaca to make a jumper and its about the only photo I posted on the Tour de Fleece group before getting bored with the whole event . Guess I am just not competitive any more ;)
I also haven't got out of TdF I was hoping for ie get a whole fleece spun so I am now going to get on with that instead but at least I have tested a new wheel and done good samples for future projects