And We're Off!

Today starts the 2014 Tour de France and its little sister, the Tour de Fleece.  That means 21 days of spinning (both the bicycle- and spindle-shaped varieties) over 23 days of July.  We the fiber spinners are going to spin miles of yarn.  Miles of it, I tell you.  Many miles.

I'm not though.  I will be happy to get around 350 yards (~320 meters) of yarn out of this project.  That's not much, considering some people will be producing that much in a matter of days, but I'll excuse myself by saying I'm spinning lace and working on other projects as well!

I was deliriously excited to get started on this project, so there are about a million pictures and none of them are very interesting, and I'm putting them up anyway because they're all lovely pictures.  I'll try to make them more interesting as the Tour continues.  For now, would you like to see what I did today?

Only one picture is allowed in the daily threads, so I've learned to make a photo collage!  Here's Day 1 in one picture:

If that was enough for you, feel free to stop there.  If you'd like to see many more pictures and a bit of a ramble, read on!

This morning I packed my fiber bundle for the day into a pocket of the bag I take to church for an early morning service.  I ended up having to drive there, so I spent much of the trip talking in an effort to stay awake and alert (that highway is scary going north).  Once I arrived, however, I pulled out Róisín and my little bundle and started spinning.  First up was green, and on the way home (in the passenger seat) I took a picture of it on my lap.

After arriving home I spent some time wandering the gameroom spinning and listening to a Jim Weiss CD (Celtic stories, this time) with my little brother, who was knitting.  I got through the rest of the fiber in the picture above, and took a few pictures of the finished turtle still on the spindle.

It's only about a gram of fiber, but I expect about 20 yards (~18 meters) out of it, maybe more.  The Polwarth is just lovely stuff.  Even slightly felted it's quite easy to draft extremely thinly.

Once the green was done, it was on to the yellow.  Just for kicks, I took the same set of pictures.

That's also about a gram.  I love Turkish spindles; it's so easy to wind an adorable cop and the turtles stay neat and tidy with no need to wind off.

These little guys are going to sit and rest for a few days (I don't ply fresh singles anymore if I can help it!) and they'll be plied on Wednesday along with the next three pairs.

As of today, progress looks like this:

The turtles are in the wrong order; I know

And I really love that picture.

On to tomorrow!  I have some mundane things to do (like laundry and dishes and vacuuming), but I'll definitely make time for more spinning.  I might even get some reading and other crafts done as well!