Spin, Wheel, Spin!

While to the casual observer it may appear that I spent my Fourth of July weekend doing nothing but sitting around, the more well informed will realize that I was actually quite productive -- at least as far as the fiber arts are concerned.

You see, I signed up for the Tour de Fleece this year, with the hopes of spinning down some of my fiber stash and (gasp!) spinning something other than sock yarn for a change.

Alas, my first Tour yarn failed miserably to meet one of these goals. Yes, it is another sock yarn. I had hoped to have it off the wheel in time for the start of the Tour, but life intervened and prevented that from happening. I did manage to get all the singles spun by Friday, so when competition officially opened on Saturday, I was ready to ply.

I started with yet another superwash merino braid from my favorite fiber pusher, this one beginning at 4.3 ounces.

In the end, I got approximately 446 yards of three-ply fingering weight. This was a rather pleasant surprise, as I had no idea how it was going to turn out. My wanting to see the end result was probably what motivated me to ply it all in one day.

As soon as that was done, I broke out an enormous bump (10 ounces!) of Lorna's Laces wool top that I bought from Sonny & Shear about a year ago. I'd hoped to split it in half and use five ounces for a two-ply worsted weight in order to knit Rainbow a stripe-y Baby Surprise Jacket. Unfortunately, it looks like I'm really having trouble not spinning thin, so it looks like it might have to be a three ply. Here's the first section in progress:

Did I mention that the colorway of this fiber is also called Rainbow? Quite a happy coincidence, if I do say so!