Pink Lemon Twist: Tour de Fleece

It's been a long time since I participated, but this year I'm doing Tour de Fleece again. I started Saturday morning with a six gram sample of a roving called Pebbles from Hipstrings. The sample was included when I ordered a new Spinner's Control Card for the Flatiron. (I like to keep one of these on every wheel.) I decided to spin up the sample so I'd have something to practice chain plying on before I did it on the braid of fiber that I also wanted to spin for the Tour. Then I decided, since I was spinning it anyway, and it was just for playing around, I'd make it into fauxlogs and spin it like that - since I'd never tried that before.

So that's what I did!

Then I spun up the singles as close to 40 wpi as I could get them (the sari silk in the blend means there's no way I'll get a perfectly smooth yarn). I enjoyed spinning the fauxlogs and I can't wait to see what the finished yarn looks like, but I need to let the singles sit and let the twist set a bit before chain plying.

After playing around with that sample, I started on an actual project. This is four ounces of a hand dyed top from Greenwood Fiberworks in the Durango colorway. It's 60% Merino, 20% Yak, and 20% Tussah Silk. It's super crazy soft! I knew I wanted to chain ply it to maintain the colors, but I wanted shorter stripes of each color as well. I ended up stripping the top into fourths lengthwise and that's how I'm spinning it. I'm more than halfway through the braid at this point and I'm really enjoying the spinning.

Since I'm trying to become a better spinner and the idea of being able to repeat a yarn appeals to me, for the first time ever in Pink Lemon Spinning History I made a little reference card with actual samples of my singles, a three ply plying guide (this is what I'll refer back to when I get to the plying), and a two ply - ply back test (this lets me do a quick check on my singles to make sure I'm getting consistent twist). I'll add a bit of the finished yarn once it's washed and finished (which will be a bit fatter than the three ply plying guide). It's actually been a super useful thing to have already, although yesterday morning I caught Max trying to eat the sample yarns hanging off of it. I've got it tucked into my spinning notebook when I'm not spinning now.