10 reasons why I failed at the Tour de Fleece

1. My pincher fingers got sore.

2. I went to the cottage a lot and lost valuable weekend time (but had a lovely time, otherwise. Kyle's parents just bought a new boat and we went on lots of wildlife seeking boat rides. I was trying to choose some pictures to post here but perhaps it's best if you just check out kyle's flickr account. the link is on the side...)

3. I had work dancing last week and ended up so sore I was completely useless all week

4. I wasn't overly inspired by the weird colour I chose. I looked at other people's spinning blogs and their yarn was so pretty. It was inspiring that you could make such beautiful yarn but made me less than excited about what I had

5. I realized I'm really not very good at spinning yarn to make socks. I'm not very consistent in my thinkness... Perhaps I need more practice which also seems to require more patience....

6. It seemed to take up most of my living room and looked messy... I need a craft room...

7. Petigre kept wanting to sit on my lap when i did it and then she would attack the yarn

8. I'm easily distracted... I made these socks



9. And then this hat




10. And then started on these mitts



So I guess maybe I was doomed from the start. However, I did manage to pull my spinning wheel and wool out of the basement of my parent's house and get started at least. It's more than I've done in a long time. Oh well...

my old lady soul rears it's head yet again

A while back, Christie and I took a spinning class. At the time we were interested in creating yarn that looked more interesting than regular yarn. We wanted thick strands of crazy yarn with puffs and nubbins and fuzzy bits in colours that we found appealing. Our spinning instructor was perhaps a little alarmed at what we created while all the other ladies spun thin, even strands for knitting socks or some other tiny thing. At that time we never would have even touched such wee little yarns. However, over time I've come to realize that the crazy yarn is really not much good for anything other than being pretty yarn and regular, even yarn is so prolific because it serves a much more useful purpose.... In my experience crazy yarn doesn't really lend itself to becoming a knitted item that I would ever wear. So I've decided it's time to revisit the world of spinning and try my hand at a nice, even, smooth yarn. Plus I have discovered that I like knitting teeny things like socks after all, so it's all the more exciting for me. One of my goals for the summer was to take up spinning again and just recently I managed to come accross a little event called the Tour de Fleece. Basically it's for spinners to issue themselves a challenge that they wish to accomplish within the time frame of the Tour de France. So initially I thought I would challenge myself to spin enough yarn to make myself a pair of socks. However, as I started my spinning it occurred to me that I might not actually have enough wool to make this possible, so I'm challenging myself to spin enough wool to make a respectable skein of yarn and attempt to make it into socks. So I unearthed my spinning wheel and my wool from the depths of my parent's basement and I have begun. Here's my progress so far: