Monday night I was able to spin up a good portion of the fiber I had. I pre-drafted for a good hour before starting and had this huge pile to work from.
Fiber ready for spinning!
After another hour, I had a bobbin full of singles.
Full bobbin
Monday I had a total of 2 hours of spinning. I’m counting the time I spend pre-drafting because it’s all part of the process. Three days into Tour de Fleece, I have 2 full bobbins of fiber!
Progress 3 days into Tour de Fleece
I have a confession, though. Yesterday I pre-drafted some fiber, but that’s about as far as I got. I was so worn out and just wasn’t feeling up to it. I’m counting my 20 min of pre-drafting for my time yesterday. I did spend 2 hours spinning Monday, so I think that evens out my time a bit (for my hour per day goal I set) – at least that’s what I’m telling myself 😉
Total time spent spinning for the Tour de Fleece so far: 4 hours, 25 minutes. Not bad for someone who bought a wheel then hardly used it and has since been collecting dust in the corner up until now. I think a lot of my initial unhappiness with spinning had to do with the fiber I was using and not really finding my groove. Different story now!! I’m enjoying spinning quite a lot now. We’ll see if I still feel the same at the end of the Tour de Fleece 🙂
My WIP Wrestling started out strong. I finished the Cotty socks just a few days in. Then the Tour de Fleece started and I was feeling a bit like I was puttering out of the WIP Wrestling. Since the beginning of the month, I’ve had my eye on the On-Hold socks from Socks from the Toe-Up since that is the pattern this month for the KAL over on Ravelry. I told myself I wouldn’t start them until I have at least half of the WIP’s I’m “wrestling” done and that maybe I wouldn’t do the KAL socks at all. Then I started to see people post their progress pictures of their socks. Each day I wanted to knit them more and more!! Finally, last night I caved and started them.
Beginnings of the On-Hold sock.
I don’t know that I’m loving the pattern, though. I think it might be the yarn. This is the second time I’ve tried to use this yarn and it doesn’t really speak to me as much as other yarns I have (or have used). I think it’s also partly the pattern itself. The gauge for the pattern is 8 stitches/12 rows = 1 inch. I am getting 9 stitches/12 rows = 1 inch. I figured this would help me get a better fit since at gauge the sock would end up 8.25″ around and I like socks about 8″ around giving me a half of an inch of negative ease (my foot is 8.5″ around at the widest point). Still, I took out 4 stitches – 2 from the ends of the chart and 2 from the sole. I should have 66 stitches total and instead I have 62, but it still seems just a bit big. I thought about ripping back and taking out 4 more. Instead I think I’ll knit the sock length a little shorter to make up for the slight difference. I might even do the heel called for in the pattern this time around!
As for the WIP Wrestling… I really don’t think I will finish all I set out to do. I’m not super surprised by this because I kind of knew going in that the Fountain Pen Shawl wouldn’t get done, but I did think that I’d be able to do the rest. We’ll see how the month goes. Tour de Fleece seems to be cutting down my knitting time and I didn’t really take that into account when I decided to work on all of my WIPs for WIP Wrestling.
I’m still working on Hey Teach. I’m up to the lace on the left front, though I don’t have an updated picture of it yet.
House is sloooooowly coming together. A/C and hot water were restored Friday, but we’re having trouble getting the 2nd floor to be as cool as the 1st floor. I suppose this is an issue in any 2 story house, though. Always warmer upstairs! More boxes are being unpacked almost every day. I’m not feeling in any rush to get them all unpacked, but I have to admit, I am getting sick of seeing them and them constantly being in the way. The rest of this week I plan on attacking them pretty fiercely, making Matt set up the living room properly so we can have the TV back and making him finish unpacking his stuff in the office. We’ve met most of our neighbors now. Yesterday we went out and said hi to the two guys who live in the house across the street since they were out doing a bit of yard work. While we were chatting with them, more neighbors came out and introduced themselves. They all seem really nice! I’m really not used to having friendly neighbors, so this is a welcome change 🙂 I found out that one of the guys across the street has recently learned to knit! Of course I told him about the weekly knitting night, so maybe he’ll be able to go sometime.
Well, there’s lots that I should get back to! I can’t believe it’s already mid-week and knit night. I’m looking forward to it, though. Happy crafting!
Loving those beautiful fluffs of fiber. Such pretty color combinations! You will get to the point where you are pre-drafting thinner and thinner amounts and then WHAMMO, you’ll have some sport weight. Are you going to leave these as singles, or ply them together? I’m thinking it will make a beautiful heavy worsted. Maybe you could do the button-up neck warmer in Jessica’s spin-a-long??? I have my “braid” out in Malina that I’m going to spin up for that. I initially thought I would do the Quant, then, entrelac…. yeah…. I’m sticking with the button-up! 🙂
Your spinning looks great.