Tour de Fleece

Jim and I were invited, by my sister-in-law Julie, to join in a family weekend away at Escape to the Lake in Hesperia, MI.  

What does this have to do with the Tour de Fleece?  Well....... both events started on July 2nd. 

So here I am starting my Tour on the deck of the "Big House".  My brother took this picture for me after shaking his head in disbelief that I would bring my spinning wheel on vacation.  I actually spent quite a bit of time educating fellow vacationers about spinning and raising alpacas.  Two subjects I just love to talk about!


This is the first year I've joined in the Tour de Fleece and I'm looking at this not only as an adventure in spinning but also a learning experience in carding my own blends.

I drum carded these 3 mini batts using white suri alpaca with merino top.  One was dyed a bright blue and the other a teal.  

Lesson 1....don't over card.  It was amazing how just two passes through the carder blended these 3 colors together.

I started spinning on July 2 and finished this colorway on July 3rd.  

Julie's dog Marley was very interested in this process. 

Lesson 2....pay attention to what else appears in the picture.  Marley...... cute, my feet....... mmmmm maybe not so cute.

My mini batts totaled 3.4 oz before spinning so I decided to just spin it all.  I'll leave it as a single for right now since I don't have anything in mind and hope inspiration will come later in the Tour as to what to do with it.

My second mini batts are a blend of just the bright blue merino with white and beige suri mixed in. 

Once again, I put this batt through the drum carder to many times.  It dulled the bright blue quite a bit so I seperated the batts and then put them through the carder just once more with the bright blue.  This saved the day.  The batts turned out having a wider range of colors.....oops, I forgot to mention I also put in some bright blue bling, bling. 

This is how it's spinning up. 

This batch totaled 4.1 oz before spinning.  Again, I'm planning on just spinning it all up and waiting for inspiration to hit.   After all, this is all about the spinning, not the finished project!

Just a few more pics of Escape to the Lake.......