Day 21 and 22, The end of Tour de Fleece 2026

 That's it, spinning done . I'm going to give it a break for a few days, even though its tempting to continue we have other things in the pipeline over the next week or so.

Therefore I declare the bag FULL.

The final bobbin was spun at guild yesterday.

And plied last night.

So, how much did I spin? well it came in at a similar amount to last year 1.706 Kilo or  3.7 lbs Not too shabby and at least I now have yarn to knit with when we return to Scotland later in the year. For now I'm going to play catch up on my stitching and lace making.

We have Texel, dyed Texel, Shetland, whiteface woodland, ryeland (white and coloured) Romney, wensleydale x zwartble, falkland polworth, wool from world of wool, unknown breed and border leicester cross. I don't think I've missed any out.

Well done to anyone else taking part and I hope to do the same next year as I have for the last 15/16 years.

Tour de Fleece day Seventeen and Eighteen , Argonaut takes a trip to Southwell

Day 17, Monday was my usual knit group meeting so no photos but I did take my Argonaut and carried on spinning the Polwarth as I really want to finish it by the weekend.

Once back home I carried on with the Romney, finished the second bobbin and plied them

                                      

                                                     I then did the same with the blue fluff

Both of these were washed and dried on Tuesday and are now in the bag awaiting labels.

both are darker in real life, the camera isn't reading the light very well as its so bright even with the blinds shut.

On Tuesday I went over to Southwell, mainly to visit the sweet shop so you can imagine my shock when I found that it had closed down. It was our nearest place for buying Dutch salted liquorice so it looks like I may have to buy on line in the future :-(

Breakfast was in the cafe at the Minster although its under temporary management at the moment and I'm not a fan of paper/plastic cups for coffee especially when they make your coffee taste sort of plastic. Hopefully new owners will be in place before my next visit.

as usual, I can't resist taking a few photos

Ooops, nearly forgot, another four bobbins of Texel ready to be plied in the morning.

Tour de Fleece day sixteen, a day of contrasts

I've been spinning in-between visiting a couple of craft fairs today. First up was plying the White face woodland bobbins and getting the skein on the line to dry.

                          nice and squishy, ready to be measured and labelled later in the week.

Then I started on some Romney, 50 gram so far today, definitely a much finer spin so we will see what we get once the remainder is spun and plied.

Between the craft fairs I spent an hour or so on the Argonaut and Pete's Fibre Studio bobbin no 2

Then when I returned home I grabbed some of the World of wool carded fibres and quickly spun 25gm not really worrying about the texture, thickness etc.

All in all, not a bad day :-)

Tour de Fleece day seven, 2026 and first week round up.

 We almost have a kitchen, they have been able to refit the original cupboards saving us the cost of a new kitchen which we really didn't want to shoulder at this point. The electrician is due on Monday to fix the new light fittings then I will thoroughly clean the walls and cupboards and see how it looks. To be honest it looks better than it was originally and the insurance has covered the cost.

This means that I carried on spinning this morning.

So we now have another 100gm texel to add to yesterdays spin.

I then decuided to take advantage of the warm weather and washed the weeks spinning, popped out for a quick coffee with my argonaut then set about labelling the skeins.

this is coming to the end of the first 50gm of Petes dyed fibres.

This weeks spinning, 300gm texel, 200gm ryeland and 3 small skeins of various wools.

Tour de Fleece day six, 2026

 A day without builders as they are waiting for the plaster to dry and we were out this afternoon at a prior engagement.  Its getting warm again so we opted to stay inside and catch up with odd jobs so I caught up on the spinning.

Second bobbin of Ryeland spun and plyed BTW these are 200gm bobbins

Second bobbin of orange world of wool fibre spun, slightly better result obtained from spinning on the e-spinner compared to the green fibre spun on the louet.

Plied  pic is a closer colour match, colour name orange marmalade.

I also managed an easy spin of 100gm texel split across two bobbins, not plied yet as I may do another couple tomorrow and mix the bobbins ie ply 1 with 3 and 2 with 4.

All in all a productive morning and evening, the builders are back tomorrow so I may get chance to spin some more and then wash week ones yarn in the evening. I'm hoping to get out and about next week  but it depends on whether the work is finished because I then have the task of trying to fit everything back in the cupboards.

Tour de Fleece day five, 2026

 The builders are still with us, this morning they plastered the new ceiling and we are now waiting on the decorators to come in and paint it. As a result I  had plenty of spinning time so 50gm of Ryeland destined to be a four ply weight.

50gm of world of wool carded wool, not sure what this will be.

Once they had finished I headed out to a favourite book shop cafe in town and spent around 1 1/2 hours more on the braid from Pete.

I now have to wipe down the kitchen again before thinking about dinner, I may spin a little more later or fall asleep as its hot again.

Tour de Fleece day four, 2026

 Today has been another wait in and hang around with the builders and fencing contractors (for next door) turning up. The kitchen now has a plaster board ceiling, no cupboards or lights.

First job was to finish a headband that's been in progress for a while. I still need to darn in the ends and give it  block but it looks ok

Next I dug out around 50gm of  white faced woodland that I popped in a dye bath a couple of weeks ago along with some texel.

Later I got the louet out and finished up the World of Wool carded wool, very neppy but It did spin up ok in the end.

Both of these are now ready to go in the wash at the weekend.

I have a few more oddments to spin alongside the regular 100gm bags that I have made up. I'm thinking something naturally dark next.

No posh coffee today, maybe later in the week, I have plans to travel around a bit more next week although it may depend on how long it takes me to sort out the kitchen once they have finished, all of this is due to a plastic waste pipe resting on a metal hot water pipe and slowly melting over time.