Looking back on my wrap-up’s from previous years, I usually find myself saying that the first week has flown by, however whether due to the heatwave, or having a slightly more relaxed diary after an extremely busy couple of months, this weeks spinning has felt much more relaxed for a change and I’ve spent anywhere between 2-6 hours each day.
I began by running headlong into a problem; after running half a box of zwartbles through the wool picker and starting to spin it, I realised that my jumbo flyer just wasn’t up to spinning the yarn diameter I wanted. The yarn wouldn’t wind onto the bobbin so I was having to stop and manually do this, which was a much longer and more stressful experience than it should be (and doesn’t do the wheel much good either). I had similar problems when trying to coreless corespin Lincoln longwool several years ago and have been keeping my eyes peeled for a secondhand specialised wheel for many years to no avail. With 3 large boxes of zwartbles waiting to be spun (and I still have the rest of the Lincoln longwool stored away), I decided to take the plunge and order an Ashford country spinner; I’ve been quite reluctant to get yet another spinning wheel, but considering the number of instances over the past decade I’ve been spinning where this type of wheel would have been so useful, I think it will earn it’s keep and will leave my jumbo flyer free to do the thinner corespinning and long length plying it’s best for.
While waiting for my new wheel to arrive, I swapped to processing the baby Alpaca and have made good progress on this throughout the week. Since this fleece is preserving memories I wanted to get the most out of it, so rather than skirting it on a table where I’d be a bit more ruthless, I’ve been manually picking through all of it before hand carding. I’m saving the ‘waste’ which isn’t suitable for spinning and will work with the owner to see what else they might like it turned into as I think it would felt quite well.
I also took on what I’m calling the loooooong draw challenge (seeing how many metres can be spun in one draw) which was good fun and more successful than I thought, particularly considering I was borrowing a friends electric eel wheel and I’ve never used an electric spinning wheel before. I didn’t get any spinning done on 11th as I was preoccupied with finishing and assembling my country spinner, but now it’s ready to go I can hopefully vary my spinning content a little more over the next two weeks, crack on with the zwartbles and start to deal with that sawdust filled angora goat fibre.
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!
Happy Spinning!
Loose Ends 
Wow that long draw attempt is verrrrryyyyyy long!!! How fun! All that processing from scratch takes such a long time, but it will be very rewarding when you finally finish the project. Have fun with the new wheel, I think assembling it counts towards Tour de Fleece. I am satisfied that I have gotten in 15 to 20 minutes a day spinning, either some rolags I had made a long time ago, or practicing/learning to spin cotton on a tahkli supported spindle (spindle spinning is new to me, as is cotton spinning).
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I was so focused on the drafting zone throughout that I didn’t realise how far I’d gone until I looked up to see my friend! Fibre prep is defintely the most time consuming part of spinning, but also the most important to make it easier to shape the yarn into what you want – but I do quite enjoy it. It sounds like your challenge has been going well – it’s always nice to finally spin rolags you’ve had in your stash for a while. I definitely need to improve my cotton spinning and try it on the wheel again as I struggled with getting the tension and uptake right the last time, but I didn’t have fine carders either, so my fibre prep was questionable and cotton isn’t a very forgiving fibre.
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