It's That Time of Year

What time is that?.......Tour de Fleece!  Of course I'm back on Team Wonder Why Alpaca Farm.......some really awesome yarns are being spun.

I spent my first 3 days working on roving I had purchased on our trip last October to Vermont.  First time going to the Vermont Sheep and Wool Festival.  Here she is.....

 

I now have 464 yds. of sport weight in this beautiful color way.  After the tour, I'll have to spend some time on Ravelry looking for a simple shawl pattern.  

 

My challenge for this year was to use my lace flyer.  I've had my Lendrum for 3 years now and decided this would be the year to give lace a try.  Looked through my fiber stash and decided to start with these.....

 

The brown top is a 4 oz. Alpaca/Silk blend that I purchased from Lady Peddler and the dyed roving was purchased last year at Michigan Fiber Festival from Winding Wool Creek Fiber in color way Peace -n- Love.  I thought they would go well together to make a two color shawl.

 

What I didn't think about was how long it would take to spin 4 oz. into a lace single.  There went day 4 through 12 (day 10 was a day of rest). 

 

Really proud of how fine I was able to spin even though the finished yarn did not fall into the lace range.  The wraps per inch turned out to be 25 and according to my WPI gauge that's probably a light fingering.......lace starts at 35+WPI......what?  I can't quite get my head wrapped around how fine the single would have to be. 

Day 13 had me starting on the dyed roving.  Now my challenge is to spin my singles the same thickness so the final yarn will be close to the WPI of the alpaca/silk.  I was worried the roving would be harder to spin this fine but am glad to say.......it is not....yay!

 

 

Yesterday was such a beautiful day, I only spun 0.4oz.  I really wanted to spend some time "shabby chic'n" a couple pieces of furniture.  Got my plant stand done....

 

and a little side table painted.  Now I just have to figure out what I'm going to do to fix the top.  I have several ideas but just can't seem to make up my mind....this tells me I haven't come up with the right design yet!

 

Well that's it for me.  I need to read some of the other Fiber Arts Friday posts, get to spinning and hopefully get back to painting my next furniture piece.

 

Happy Fiber Arts Friday!!