FO Friday: The Tour de Fleece Edition

Happy Friday!

It's been awhile since I participated in FO Friday but with Tour de Fleece ending on Sunday and the pile of new handspun yarn.......I suppose I could bore you all to death with my Tour de Fleece handspun finishes :)

So, onward to the handspun.....

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Awhile ago, like when I first bought Viktor, my Majacraft Pioneer spinning wheel (February 2011), I picked up some of what I thought was absolutely lovely blue fiber. It was a Corriedale fiber, dyed "French Blue" and was sold under Louet. Now, whether Louet processes and dyes the fiber themselves or has someone else do it, I don't know. But it was probably 8 oz. of French Blue Corriedale from Louet. I had an absolutely awful time spinning it. I dubbed it the "Asshole Blue Corriedale" because it was so so difficult to spin. I had all these dreams of making a lovely yarn from this blue fiber.

It was not to be.

The good news is that I'm done with the Asshole Blue Corriedale. The other good news is that I learned a few things along the way. A couple weeks ago, a lovely woman that lives not too far from me, came up to the house with her spinning wheel and we had a lesson in plying and some other tips and tricks about spinning. One of the things I learned was that fiber that is sold under Louet is......not great. Sure, it looks pretty but spinning it is a total bastard. So, my intense dislike of Corriedale may actually be an intense dislike of Corriedale that is processed and dyed by/for Louet. But, having only worked with this particular fiber from Louet, I'm not sure......and I'm not crazy about spending money to find out.

But, back to the yarn shown above...

After I finished some things (which you'll see below), I was left with probably 100 yds of the Asshole Blue Corriedale singles, which became the photo above.

Fiber: French Blue Corriedale from Louet
Ply: Chain
Wraps Per Inch (WPI): 6
Yards: ~ 30
Skein Weight: 45 g/1.6 oz
Yarn Weight: Bulky

Moving along...

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Fiber: unknown multi-blue colored BFL and aforementioned Asshole Blue Corriedale
Ply: two
WPI: 11
Yards: ~ 112
Skein Weight: 85 g/3 oz
Yarn Weight: DK/Light Worsted

Around the same time I picked up the Asshole Blue Corriedale, I picked up a ball of multi-colored blue BFL, probably roving (I can't really remember). The singles were spun so very long ago and I'm sure I have some handspun hanging around that contains the same fiber but I've not found it yet. Someday. But, anyway, I had some of this multi-colored blue BFL hanging out on a bobbin (nowhere near full), taking up space. So, I plied it with the Asshole Blue Corriedale and wound up with this. It's not bad, considering the Asshole Blue Corriedale is half the yarn....but the ply was a little underspun, which works because both singles were horribly overspun. So, I have some yarn I may actually be able to work with.

Link to Stash Page

Fiber: unknown multi-colored blue BFL, unknown multi-colored purple & blue BFL, Asshole Blue Corriedale
Ply: two + single = three
WPI: 8
Yards: ~ 10
Skein Weight: 14 g/.5 oz
Yarn Weight: Aran

In an effort to clear off my bobbins, I made this. I had some unknown purple & blue multi-colored BFL hanging out on a bobbin (not much at all, seriously) and the recently two-plied multi-colored blue BFL and Asshole Blue Corriedale. Because the two-ply was a bit underspun and because the single was pretty well overspun, I plied them "Z" (which is how I did the two-ply, which is to make my wheel spin counter-clockwise) in an effort to further ply the two as well as take out some of the overspin in the single. The result is above. It worked out really well, actually, and it's kind of a shame that I only have 10 yds. of it. Because I had so little of the multi-colored purple & blue, I'm 95% sure there's a two-ply of some sort hanging out in one of my yarn bins. I'll have to find it.

And there ends the Asshole Blue Corriedale and some unknown multi-colored BFL that I had hanging about.

My only goal for Tour de Fleece was to finish spinning up some kelly green merino I had barely started.

And, behold!

Link to Stash Page

Fiber: 100% merino in kelly green
Ply: two
WPI: 7-8
Yards: 196 yds + 150 yds = 346 yds
Skein Weight: 96 g/3.4 oz + 57 g/1.9 oz = 153 g/5.3 oz
Yarn Weight: DK/Light Worsted

I expect that I started with either 6 or 8 oz of fiber (I'm leaning more toward 8 oz as I had some difficulty with some big balls of snaggy ick that would not come out and some broken singles while plying). I made the rolags that you may have seen previously and I was scared as hell to ply this yarn because I didn't want to screw it up. It's not perfect but it's a pretty good yarn, considering.

"But Renee?" you ask, "Why are there two skeins?" Good question. When I was plying, I had a single that was spun really thin and the bastard snapped. I tried to get it back together with a little knot and it was not happening sooooo.....I said, "Screw it," and broke both singles and called it good. That's the skein on the left (the bigger of the two).

Also, there's some green merino left on the bobbin so I expect I'll have another random skein of something at some point in the future (distant or not, who knows?).


So, there's all my Tour de Fleece handspun love. I'm surprised I got as much done as I did, with two small children wandering about and not a whole lot of time to spin :)

I hope you're all having a lovely Friday!