As usual, the first week of Tour de Fleece has flown by and I’ve found myself focusing on processing the Castlemilk Moorit. I had less spinning time in the latter half of the week and have felt progressively less productive as the current heatwave in the UK continues, but looking back over the past week’s photos I’ve managed more than I thought.
I started by separating the Castlemilk Moorit fleece into soft and coarser fibres and carding the soft fibres. I then spent the rest of the week gradually spinning and plying these, as well as taking on a Tuesday challenge (seeing what length of yarn I could spin with just one spin of the drop spindle) and experimenting with spinning cotton for the first time on a drop spindle. I’ve also been filming my progress and you can find this week’s video (including footage from my Tuesday Challenge as it was difficult to photograph) below the gallery.
I have around half the Castlemilk Moorit fleece left to card and spin, so I’m hoping I can make good progress on that next week and hopefully introduce some Black Welsh Mountain to make things a little more varied.
If you are also joining in with Tour de Fleece I’d love to hear how you’re getting on, let me know in the comments below!
My stats also tell me that this is my 100th blog post since starting Loose Ends Fibre, so I want to say a massive thank you to everyone who has joined me on my fibre journey so far, I hope my woolly ramblings have been interesting and provided some calm in the increasingly volatile world we live in.
Happy Spinning!
For more information about my tour de fleece challenge my introductory blog post is here. I’m also posting my progress photos daily on my instagram.
Loose Ends 
What is the photo of the belt? For Tour de Fleece I have been working on spinning samples using various techniques in both a worsted and woolen preparation, part of an online class called “Spinning up a level” from the School of Sweet Georgia. For 20 years I have just spun however it came out, so this is really helpful. I am learning a lot. I finished the first set of samples of worsted prep using some combed top. I also got out my spindle on a couple of days when I was away from home for a chunk of the day. I will be out of town for a few days, so I plan on bring the drop spindle with me. Some days I have only spun for a few minutes, but it is better than nothing.
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Ah, that photo was from the Tuesday Challenge (it was difficult to capture spinning with just one spin of the spindle and measuring the length in a photo, so I opted for a still from the film footage) – my full attempt is in the video at the bottom around halfway through. It sounds like you’ve had a productive first week and got into a good spinning routine! I’m always amazed by how different fibre preparation methods can make such a difference to spinning technique – my Castlemilk Moorit is proving quite challenging as it’s such a short staple (most books suggest blending it with longer fibres), but I’m curious to see how it behaves on it’s own and it’s definitely giving my practice at controlling my long draw technique!
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