Tour de Fleece 2012 - Team NBK!

Goals:

-1.-
Plying 2 or more different braids together (complementing each other)
~ NBK Alpaca in Stonehenge
~ HilltopCloud 70/15/15 BFL/Alpaca/Seacell
~ NBK Mixed BFL in Stonehenge

-2.-
Spinning and n-plying a fingering weight yarn
On Sidekick, with high speed whorl and bobbin!
~ loop bullseye bump Tigers Eye

-3.-
Spindling 100g of fiber!
~ NBK Cheviot in In Due Time

DIARY
Day 1
Helped Julie moving to Odense all day, and stopped by Nanna for a little bit of knitting afterwards. Was home at 23.30 or so and only picked up the NBK Alpaca, divided it into 4 strips and started spinning. Didn’t make it very far, though!

Day 2
Spun a total of about 20g of the NBK Alpaca. Then picked up the NBK Mixed BFL and spun about 40g of that, and the Hilltopcloud BFL/Alpaca/Seacell of which I got about 10g spun. Doesn’t seem like much on the bobbins (compared to what others do), but it’s something!

Day 3
Spun mostly the Alpaca and some of the Mix. Got about the same amount of each now :)

Day 4
Spun the rest of the Alpaca. It was playing up a bit at the end, but I got it conquered, yes I did! Ha!

Day 5
Spindled NBK In Due Time on Cheviot, on my 24g Golding silver inlaid Cherry Blossom spindle. The Cheviot is coarse (comparable to Shetland, I think), and has long staples = easy to draft and spin, and doesn’t require much twist. Goes fast! Not spinning it very thin though, that doesn’t seem really possible..

Day 6
Spun on the NBK Stonehenge on BFL. Didn’t get very far though.. About 1/4 of the braid lacking.

Day 7
Spun the rest of the NBK Stonehenge on BFL, and the rest of the Hilltopcloud mix! Now to let them rest, so I can ply them.. SOON!

Day 8
Spun a bit of a loop bullseye bump Tigers Eye with sparkle. Had some other projects going on this day..

Day 9
Plying the 3-ply! Exciting!
Sidekick, travel bobbin, fast whorl ratio 9:1, scotch tension break on larger bobbin whorl.
Result: 2 full bobbins and one with a little, with all 3 fibers.
One bobbin where I plied two singles of NBK BFL with one single of NBK Alpaca, because there was no more Hilltopcloud.. (NBK braids of 113 g, Hilltopcloud only 100g)
At the end a little bit of 2 ply NBK BFL (see left most bobbin at the top).
Skein 1: 311 m, 124g. (~250m/100g, DK/Sport weight)
Skein 2: 368 m, 137g. (~268m/100g, DK/Sport weight)
Skein 3: 55 m, 18g. (~305m/100g, DK/Sport weight)
Skein 4 (2 plies of BFL, 1 ply Alpaca): 135m, 45g.
Skein 5 (2 ply BFL): 13m, 4g.

Day 10
I spun a bit more on the Loop Bullseye Bump.. But not much!

Day 11
Helped my best friend painting her apartment. Only spindled a little tiny bit - picture evidence!

Day 12-18
I ehm.. Actually didn’t do much. Helped with the painting again on Day 12, and went on vacation Day 13. Spindled a tiny bit on vacation, but really not much!

Day 19
Challenge day!
Back from vac, my challenge was to try my luck at n-ply-on-the-fly (if there was any of the Cheviot left). So - I went at it, and it worked like a charm!
I might have kind of invented my own technique (rather than following the video tutorial closely), but it works. Yay!
It’s kind of weird to wind finished yarn on the spindle. Also, the lengths are shorter, so it is harder to wind evenly to the bottom of the shaft.
Spun this day: 31,82m, 12g. (~258m/100g, DK weight). Not much - but it was one spindle almost full, and I was focusing on the technique rather than the quantity :)

Day 20
I was a bit skizophrenic this day, spinning on the loop bullseye bump as well as doing some n-ply-on-the-fly with the NBK Cheviot. Both need to be done, you see ;)

Day 21
Worked hard on the loop bullseye bump today, and finished the spinning, so I can ply tomorrow!
Also, did a bit of spindling, but having more than 70g of fiber left I lost patience and startet spinning it on the Kicky instead..

Day 22
Plied the bullseye bump yarn:
596m total, (scales broke! but 5oz minimum.. which makes for appr 140g, so: ~425m/100g.)

Day 23
Spun the rest of the NBK Cheviot. Decided not to ply it, as I have gotten this idea to weave it instead of knitting it.. Let’s see how that goes! :D

Conclusion:
I reached goals 1 and 2. Goal 3 I didn’t reach - spindling takes me ages still, and I just don’t have the patience! I’m very content with it all anyway :)