Archive for July, 2009

The Tour de Fleece 2009 has finished and I’ve got this wonderful Maillot Jaune.

It has been a wonderful experience! Thanks everybody!

I only have a problem now: what can I say to my family, when I’ll be handspinning instead of preparing dinner?

Need to find another contest as soon as possible! Please help!!

• sooo, sooo angry for this superslow internet connection … no internet, no holidays for me! #
• This must be a nightmare! I’m paying for this connection, where is it? #
• last updates of my handspun yarns for the Tour the Fleece are here http://bit.ly/NusZU #
• ready to upload some handspun yarns on Craftster for FF #

I’m uploading here the ten yarns I’ve handspun for the Tour de Fleece 2009, just to have them all in one place.

[View with PicLens]

1234...8910►

You can find more detailed images of these yarns in my previous posts here.
I’ll be updating my Flickr album as soon as possible too.

My congratulations to all participants who have spun so many incredible yarns.
Again, it has been an honour to be included in this challenge. I’ve had a great time!

Many thanks Katherine!

I did it!!! I achieved my goal!!!

I had set myself the challenge to handspin at least ten yarns by the end of the Tour de Fleece.
It might seem an easy challenge, but two factors complicated my adventure: I discovered the existence of the Tour de Fleece very late and – above all – I’ve been on holidays all alone with my two kids, here at the seaside.

It has been a wonderful experience, though a bit stressful.
My internet connection has been – and still is – very slow and unreliable, to the point that one day it left me completely isolated from the world.

My kids want to go to the seaside every day. What can I tell them? Maybe that I would like better to stay at home and handspin? It’s true, but completely insane.

Well, despite that, I could do my job.
So here are my yarns.

This is Sodalite, another creation inspired by a wonderful semi-precious stone:

Sodalite

It contains superfine merino, kid mohair locks and a lot of mulberry silk:

Sodalite - Fibers

The second yarn is named Seafoam.
I know, I know, it’s not a very original name, but I chose its colors and materials looking at the sea.
First I carded in many soft batts a lot of white mulberry silk, a squishy superfine merino in teal, light blue, pale turquoise and yellow, and a slight touch of black BFL to enhance the contrast.
Then, I produced a coiled yarn to imitate the movement of the waves.

With Seafoam I’ve reached the goal of handspinning ten yarns.
If my internet connection is still alive tomorrow, I’ll try to organize all of them in a dedicated post or in a gallery.

Now I’m going to bed.
I’m very tired. But I’ll be missing my challenge.

My internet connection has been restored and my iPhone has come back to life too.
So, as I promised, I’m uploading two more pictures of my Hello Kitty yarn.
They’re not as precise and accurated as I would have liked them to be, but my official photographer is not here and my phone is the only way to take some photos.
Here they are:

The second yarn I’m introducing is somehow special to me.
I still remember how I felt the first time I could see and touch a skein of Noro Kureyon.
It was some years ago. I was immediately fascinated by all those colors, mixed in such an unusual way.
I would have given my right arm to be able to recreate that yarn – but at that time I had not started my handspinning adventure yet.
It was then when I decided to purchase my first wheel.
So, this yarn of mine is a sort of humble tribute to Noro Kureyon, a sort of thanks to that first skein which encouraged me to try a new challenge.

Here are the rovings I prepared, mixing colors step after step:

On the wheel, transitions were already showing up:

But the final result was a joy for me:

I think I will name this yarn Remembering Noro.
For me, it’s how remembering everything.

Today I’ve been living a nightmare.
My internet connection failed this morning.
Shortly after, my iPhone decided to do the same, leaving me completely isolated from the external world.

I was trying to handspin this

into this:

It’s a soft luxury blend of alpaca, silk and superfine merino, which I handcarded in rolags on Thursday, just a few minutes before leaving.
They were my last souvenir of the civilized world. Now they’ve been entirely spun into a luscious sea-smelling yarn. As I said in my previous post, I will knit or crochet it into a nice baby hat.

As I couldn’t update my blog, I went on spinning.
Thanks to my dead internet connection, I could create this Hello Kitty yarn.

This tiny cartoon character, which my daughter and her friends love so much, suggested me both the colors (pink, red, cream and a slight touch of yellow and black) and the kind of fibers to use (superfine merino and some kid mohair locks, soft as only a kitten can be).
I also added some red sparkling bows and some lenghts of a pink fancy yarn, drafting them into the fibers and tieing them before leaving the yarn run through the orifice. It was very amusing.
At the moment, I only have a pic of Hello Kitty hanged outside to dry.

Hope tomorrow will be an easier day for me.
I swear that if everything is going better, I’ll be uploading some more accurate pictures.
I swear.

The moment has come.
I’m on holiday at the sea.

I’ve been without an internet connection for three long days, but I didn’t give up.
I kept on handspinning and taking pics, waiting for the magic moment when this little awful internet key would finally work.

Here are the yarns I’ve been spinning. Of course, I’ve had all the time needed to block them

I like this yarn. I followed the instructions that Lexi Boeger gives in her book Handspun Revolution.
Here’s where I started from:

Second yarn, second round of pics.

As you may notice, the pics of the finished yarns are much more accurate than the photos of the fibers.
The simple reason is that my husband took the pictures of the yarns, while I took the pics of the fibers

However, as for the next one – the last I made – he didn’t help me, both pics are awful.

(Sorry, I’ve got an iPhone, Wilma Flintstone’s Internet connection and two kids around trying to help me, claiming that they’re the best photographers in the world.)

This is a very simple spiral yarn I created starting from a handpainted merino roving:

This is all I could do during the last few days.

For tonight, I’m planning to handsping some casmere-alpaca-silk rovings I prepared before leaving.
I would like to produce a semi-worsted yarn to crochet into a baby hat for my baby cousin, whose birth is due on August 28th.

Hope to be blogging tomorrow…

This morning my luggage was looking like this:

I could clearly hear the rovings baa-ing from inside – they were very worried, as my Ashford Traveller was still working. The jumbo flyer you can see in the picture couldn’t calm them down, they just wanted to be pulled out.

However, I was blocking my second skein for the Tour de Fleece and decided to go on,  pretending that nothing was happening.

I’ve been carding a lot of wool during the last week, as I won’t take my drumcarder with me.
And you surely know how huge is the amount of fiber that  gets trapped in a carder’s teeth at the end of the day.

I recarded all the merino, silk and alpaca collected day after day while cleaning my precious Louet Mini and spun the batts into this light-worsted yarn.

So this is my new creation. I like it because it’s very soft and its colors are much more brilliant than they may appear in the pic.
As usual, I’m waiting for my husband’s help…

Here is my first handspun yarn for the Tour de Fleece.
Do you remember the fibers I started collecting last week according to the amethyst stone colors?
Last night I handspun them and here is the result:

Amethyst

I’m aware that the pic is awful. As soon as my husband takes a better one, I promise I’ll upload it here…

Hooray!!! I’ve been added in the Tour de Fleece 2009!
I discovered its existence a little too late, but Katherine was so nice as to include me anyway. Thank you!

For those of you who don’t know what it is, the Tour de Fleece is a spinning challenge which covers the entire period of the Tour de France, from July 4th to 26th.
Every participant has to set herself a personal challenge and try to meet it during the specified time.
My challenge is to handspin at least ten yarns by the end of the tour, even if I will be on holidays with my two kids. I know, ten yarns may seem not such a challenge, but holidays with my kids are.
I really hope that I’ll be able to find at least a couple of hours of freedom every day – it would be a delightful new experience for me spinning outside, in front of the sea.
Well, I’ll be updating my progress here, so stay tuned!