The Tour Goes On

Well, talk about a comedy of errors.  First my laptop battery died which kept me from giving a nod to the winner of the skein of yarn, and then if that's not bad enough, the heat wave is back on after days of rain and humidity. 

Every braid of fiber I touched felt like hot stones, and a couple of them were none too soft either.  Spinning Wensleydale in this heat is like wearing a winter coat while walking in the desert!

It turns out that the 5th person to leave a comment on my blog was Remy Grace who, at less than 3 months old, was clever enough to leave a comment and score this skein for her mom, Anonymous T.  So, congratulations on your new skein of yarn.

Here's my Tour progress so far, 2 skeins of Wensleydale:

This one goes from blue to gray and is lovely to look at, but it's rough (softer after it was washed).  This fiber would make a great felted something or other, but it's not up for gifting.  The fiber was a gift and I plan to use it.  The fiber is from Flying Fibers and the colors are wonderful.

Then there was this second skein of Wensleydale from Lisa Souza.  Beautiful colors, but hairy and rough:

I wish this fiber was softer because the colors are remarkable.  Yum, yum the turquoise and blue get me all excited about spinning.  And I didn't do half bad considering that the fiber was not a joy to spin.  If you've had a good experience with Wensleydale, please let me know about it.  I'd like to get the bad taste for Wensleydale out of my mouth.

Now I'm in the middle of spinning some bamboo, which, if I don't screw up the plying will be up for grabs.  Here's what it looks like unspun:

And here's what it looks like spun up a little: 

I wouldn't get my hopes up for this slippery yarn from Extreme Spinning on Etsy.  It's all pretty and shiny now, but I have a knack for not getting the plying right, so keep your fingers crossed!

Lastly, I've got some alpaca which is just as slippery as the bamboo:

This one will also be up for grabs as soon as it's plied up.  This fiber comes from The Sheep Shed and it's worth every penny I spent on it.  The fact that its solid chocolate brown with bits of white silk means there's almost no chance of me screwing up the plying.  I'm good with solids (kind of).

So, back to the races.  I've got 2 more braids to spin to reach my goal before the race ends and I'm spinning as fast as I can.

Stay tuned.