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Ok, so twards the end I fell of my bike. Ack. I also seem to have fallen off the posting wagon.  So let me at least give a run down of what’s all done. Because I really fell of the bike. I don’t even have picts from every day! Arg, and I was doing so well!

The finished Skein of Soy silk/ reclaimed sari silk- 4 oz 180 yrds:

Sadly much of the dye rinsed out. Check out the flikr page, I got lots of picts of THAT skein.
Wool and sari silk blend In progress.

Merino/ Sari silk blend. About 140 yards. 4 oz.

An no, I haven’t taken it off my niddy noddy yet. I’m worried about the dye running. I want to be ready to take ALL the boo boo dying over to the neighbor’s at once to borrow her microwave. Because I’m a hippy and don’t have one.
I was hoping to get this second batch of sari/soy silk done, but it’s only half done.

Day six Thursday July 12 : Photo got lost in limbo it appears. More of the alpaca, I’m sure.

Day seven Friday july 13: More of the Alpaca/silk

Day 8 Saturday July 14: Finished the alpaca silk blend. Washed it a bunch. Yah, that was a lot of dirt in there. Never assume your fleece is clean, no matter who it came from. That means I have a FINISHED SKEIN!!!

Aprox 208 yards of a an Alpaca/silk blend, probably 90/10. 4 oz total. That shadow in the corner? That is my pregnant belly casting a shadow (I was standing sideways as I took the picture.). The obnoxious yarn is just to hold it (and it’s obnoxious so I don’t loose it!).

Day 9 Sunday July 15: er, that was a day of rest.

Day 10 Monday July 16: Started on the soy silk. After mopping off the wheel. I spun this day even though it was the day of rest because I took the Sunday day of rest.  It all balances out!

Day 11 Tuesday July 17:’ More of the silks. Its intresting to see that the silks in fluffy form are pretty light, but the yarn is pretty dark….

Day 12 Wednesday July 18: The last of the first bobbin

Day 13 Thursday July 19:

This was one of those ‘spinning is cheaper than therapy’ days. I spun up a whole 2 oz of the soy/recalmed silk. Whoosh. Just like that. I do feel much better.

Both bobbins together.

I have been spinning with the soy silk on a spindle. It’s been to play group and a LLL picnic. It’s currently in the car.
And I have other fun stuff I’ve been working on- I made two dresses for Tiny out of mens shirts. They are so cute- unfortunately I need to take a pict as soon as I put them on her. She’s a bit of a messy girl.  But that’s ok. I’ve also got most of what I need for my birth kit, but that’s another post in different journal.

More silks today! And then I’m torn whether to keep playing with the silks or do some wool………

Ok so I’m behind on posting. I keep getting distracted by other fun projects. I keep carding fun stuff. And I still have to keep the offspring and husband (and self, for that matter) occupied, happy and fed. It’s a lot for a mama to do. But I HAVE been spinning……

Day Two: Soy silk.

I spun at church and surprisingly got no questions. I think I got more when I was knitting at church. I couldn’t keep it up for too long, I had to lean a little bit because of the skirt I was wearing and my back could only take so much of it. I should have spun more at grandmas but I was having more fun with grandma and tiny.

Day Three: The beginnings of the alpaca/silk blend. The alpaca is a little dirty….

Day Four:

More alpaca and silk and the spinning wheel moved into the basement. I like that my wheel is portable.

Day Five:

I finished the first two ounces of the alpaca/ silk blend and started a new bobbin. I’m spinning 4 oz so I do two oz on each bobbin. And generally when I ply, I get somewhere close to the same amount. Most of the time. 8-P

And like I said, I’ve been carding much too. These are in my ‘que’ to spin.  Because I have really high expectations of spinning during the tour de fleece. Ok, really I just got excited and was having a really good time carding and blending….

Someone gave me some Jacob’s sheep fleece. I cared up about 8 oz, this is 4 oz. It smells like sheep- I love it.

4 oz of Merino/ Sari Silk blend. What crazy fluff! I’ve never spun sari silk before, this will be fun to see how it turns out. I very meticulously cut the silk into about 2 inch lengths before blending with with the dyed merino. And it was a time consuming pain in my can.

This is the sari silk with soy silk. I took the sari silk over to my moms house and just kinda hacked at it with a rotary cutter. (mom has the fancy rotary cutter table, hence why I took it over there…) I tried keeping it about two inch lengthes. MUCH EASIER.

I’m doing one more sari/soy silk blend. This one I hacked at the silk with my scissors, and I hacked at about 1 inch lengths. Now I’m carding it with my fine carders. This makes it fray a little and look a little more like ‘fibre’. It’s also stretching so I’m still getting my 2 inch fibre lengths.  This one is in progress, I need to finish carding the silk and then blend it with the soy. But now I’m just playing and I’m in no hurry……

And one more picture, just because my tiny is a cutie pants…..

Helping mama card.

So day one was yesterday, but yah right I’m going to blog about what happened that day at the end of the day. I went to sleep, thankew.

I have photos of the actual spinning. I say that because I did some other spinning related stuff, like carding and clearing off a spindle. And to keep perspective, there is always the non spinning stuff that goes on during the day- the morning drive/Tiny nap, Keeping Tiny Quiet while dad naps, giving Tiny another nap, lunch, dinner, slurpee run, etc.

I had to clear off this spindle- It had about 1 oz of soy silk already spun- and the spindle was getting kinda full. I just love soy silk. To pieces. I should have a pound delivered every other month or so. I would so use it.

This is some alpaca I was given. It has been in storage for a while, so it’s a little matted. Maybe compressed is a better word. It’s in a really nice roving, but there is a shocking amount of VM still in it. Between the matting and the VM I’m getting frustrated with it and may put it down for a while.

Today? The soy silk spindle is probably coming to church with me. I may not get much wheel spinning done. Unless I go up and be quiet while the Tiny sleeps.