Well I did it I signed up for this years Tour de Fleece which starts on Saturday, all I can say now is i’m both full of dread and excitment at the same time. You’d think I actually have to cyle the thing with them the why I have been feeling. Here’s the basic premise of the Tour De Fleece:

Guidelines (NOT RULES):

1. Spin every day the Tour rides, if possible. Saturday July 4th through Sunday July 26th. Days of rest: Monday July 13th, Monday July 20th. (Just like the actual tour)
2. Spin something challenging Wednesday July 22nd. (The Tour’s densest mountain stage with 5 mountain passes)
3. Take a button if you want one. Then we can use the button on our blogs in show of solidarity. Take it from here or grab a clean one from the flickr pool. Come join the flickr pool!
4. Wear yellow on Sunday July 26th to announce victory. Why not wear yellow on any day you feel particularly successful? (Yellow is the color of the race leader in the Tour – but here we are all ‘race leaders’)
5. Other colors if desired: Green (sprinter – think FAST), Polka-dot (climber – as in uphill), and white (rookie)

Teams: Join one, or many, or none.

• Rookies (first years)
• Sprinters (fast and/or high mileage like lace)
• Climbers (conquer mountains, big personal challenges)
• Breakaway (Art yarns)
• Peloton (The main group. Everyone is in the peloton at some point)
• Lantern rouge (You will participate as much as possible but you may skip days here and there. Cheerleaders welcome.)
• Wildcards (This is for people who want to form their own team. This includes sponsored teams, like those affiliated with a specific fiber shop or people who live in the same town, etc.)

This is all done on ravelry, and it’s not too late to join so if your interested head on over to here(ravelry link)

So as I said in my last post I had more spinning to done. So It all started with Christmas for which I got from my dear friend Daniel (blog coming soon) among other things this beautiful alpaca top from this fabulous shop(I really can’t believe that I am going to give away this top secret) Ewe Give Me The Knits based in Austraila.

This is some of her hand dye which you have to wait up and stalk the the site obsessively when you find out she is doing an update(she alerts you via her rav group) and literally the first top will start and you will have a frenzy of the shark like spinners going for their tops, you find the one you wanted click on it a four others that you think are pretty and then check out to find that two of them disappeared from your order snatched away in the last moments from your cart. That’s okay though because that’s why you put four in your cart.  Then you get it and realize that Mandie has dyed your yarn by mixing crack in with the dye and a bit of LSD too, it is nearly impossible to spin up just a little bit of this wool you MUST SPIN IT ALL!

This was my first experience with EGMTK and I have to say I was addicted, I mean I ‘m a sucker for  alpaca to begin with but this this was absolute divine goodness, it was like angel alpaca. So soft drafted like a bloody dream, and ZOMG amazing colours. When it came to plying I knew I wanted to ply it with something else cause I wanted max meterage, problem was I had no other wool to ply spin with and I was stuck. A forage through my stash for other purposes came up with a 800g cone of aqua sock wool a friend scored from the sallies. AH-HA! I took that out and ran it quickly through the wheel to give it some extra twist, let it sit for a bit then plied it all together.

I named this Otsego Lake because it reminded me of swimming in the lake at dusk and the angle of the sun and colours in the sky on a calm night looked as if they were coming from the lake it’s self. I ended up getting about 300 meters out of it and decided that I wanted it to be a simple scarf, so soon as it dried  I balled it up and started knitting. I decided to use my favorite stitch seed stitch so that it would show off the beautiful colours so well.

I am so happy with the way it look sI often find myself staring at it and going my how pretty it is… I have about a 45cm done on it and it keeps growing. It is sooo soft too, I just can’t believe it.  I renamed the scarf water lily because it reminds me so much of Monet’s work around his gardens. I have more to talk about but i will leave that for another post, I have a new WIP to show off and a lace one none the less!

I think that sometimes as knitters we tend to worry about the ones we love and our craft. Often it’s about the compatibility of the two. Sure your guys seems to not mind the knitting as of now, but he hasn’t lived with it you say. Will he mind the fact that I have knitting on the desk, next to the couch, on the bedside table, sometimes in the loo(very rarely usually it got left there on accident when I was tidying up)? How about the need to just pop into the LYS on the way home, or the oooooOOOOooo look a yarn shop on all of our vacations? What about the 4th jumper you have knit for that does fit right. The socks you have been “making” for him for 3 months now that were for his birthday 4 months ago.

We imagine our loving partners running away pulling out their hair in a fits due to the our habit. No matter how many times the show appreciation of our knitted gifts, or even the occasional fascination or even awe at what you were able to do with just sticks and string, we are still a touch skeptical. He’s okay now we say but soon he will wake up and realize he’s living with a deranged woman! So thus we are always looking for those little signs that he really truly gets you. Signs like “Honey I know tonight is our 1 year anniversary but it is also your knitting night and that is important to you so you go to that.” There is one sign though that is like  the bright northern star leading the lost home. When upon that big day the day that he asks you to be his wife and be with him for all of eternity he presents you with a gorgeous ring AND two skeins of sock yarn hand dyed to match your engagement ring.

Is that not the most beautiful yarn you have ever seen. It’s dyed by Morag from Vintage Purls in the exclusive colourway of “Ryan Loves Brooklynne”. I just about cried when he gave me this yarn it was such a sweet thing to do, and meant that he got me and understood me even more than the already perfect ring did. The best part is he solved a problem I was having without him even knowing it. I had been looking for the perfect sock weight yarn to make a lace shawl for the wedding and am so happy because this is even more perfect for that reason.

If that wasn’t enough to make you all jealous that I have Ryan and not you a couple days later he strolled home with this.

I have a total of a 100g of that, which is Anna Gratton’s Pukera flock in South Pacific. It’s just sooo pretty I dug out my drop spindle and started spinning it almost instantly… I am hoping to have enough to make a hat when I’m done.

Knitting wise I have abandoned temporarily the around the world socks which I feel bad about but I’m really wanting to finish this asymmetrical jacket, which I have the back and the right front done , going to start the left front soon…