Today was the final day of Tour de Fleece 2021 and like most people; I thought I could do more in 23 days than I would normally do in 3 months! This week’s spinning has been a bit more varied with some project finishing, stash busting and experimenting. Below are my daily progress photos from days 16-23 (11th July – 18th July).
Day 16: Nearly filled the 2nd bobbin of Clun Forest before running out of rolags 
Day 17: Carded and spun some more fleece to finally finish the 2nd bobbin. 
Day 18: Set the twist and knitted up the landscape yarn spin from day 9 
Day 19: Started plying the clun forest. Decided to chain ply instead of 2-ply for strength 
Day 20: Finished Navajo/chain plying both bobbins of Clun Forest 
Day 21: Spun another batt using a boucle thread to experiment with autowrapping 
Day 22: Spun up a beautiful BFL/Silk roving from my stash and then Navajo plied it to keep the colour order. 
Day 23: Experimented with spinning flax tops
How did my experience compare to my initial challenge?
I wrote a blog post at the start of tour de fleece to set out a general list of aims/projects for my challenge, so which of those did I manage to achieve?
Timing – I fluctuated around my 1 hour time guide, some days I spent much longer, others much shorter and I wrote off day 6 due to bereavement. Even with limited time I still managed to get quite a lot done and kept up the daily photos & weekly updates.
Fibre Crafts – 23 days seemed a long time when I started TDF so I gave myself a list of 5 fibre crafts that would ‘count’ in my challenge. Based on my photos (excluding day 6) here was the percentage breakdown of what I did each day:
- Spinning – 82%
- Carding/Combing – 14%
- Fleece Washing – 0% (although un-documented, I did put a fleece into the suint bath)
- Weaving – 0%
- Knitting – 4%
Spinning ended up being the focus (although I didn’t expect it to be) and I didn’t get any WIP’s finished. I did however do quite a lot of stash spinning which I can now use in projects and I started on the Clun Forest spin (I have a big weaving project planned for this, but need to do some sampling to see how suitable the fleece will be, so I can now make a start on that). I spent the rest of my time experimenting with different techniques and fibres, which has been incredibly useful in helping me decide how I want to process other raw fleeces in my stash and has given shape to future projects (I have plans to try growing some flax next year to process).
Will I do it again? – I will definitely be joining in with Tour de Fleece again, I may change my strategy next time and attempt just one or two larger projects instead of lots of smaller ones, or I might devote it to learning/trying out a new technique each day, depending on what I have in my stash at the time.
The links to all my Tour de Fleece 2021 blog posts are below:
Did you join in with Tour de Fleece 2021? Are you hoping to join in next year? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below and let me know if there is anything from my Tour de Fleece that you would like more information about.
Happy Spinning!
Loose Ends 