Tour de Fleece 2026

It was my first Tour de Fleece, and for my initial challenge, I wanted to spin a fractal yarn. To that end, I bought a Malabrigo Cloud braid in shades of green which, although I found the preparation very annoying to work with, turned into two decent skeins of yarn after all (left and curled over the top). I was so frustrated by its matted nature that for my next challenge, I said I'd finish up the Lilac Mist top (second from left), plying, washing and setting the twist in the Malabrigo when I needed a break. Once the Lilac Mist was done, I did a build-your-own fractal, again not too pleased with the preparation, but it did make a cool yarn (third from left). Then I really went off the deep end, and set myself the task of learning to spin on an e-spinner (Electric Eel Nano, center). Since I had plenty of natural white Corriedale wool, I used that (third from the right), and it turned out so nicely that it's going in the county fair (not the state fair). I was so pleased with the e-spinner that I asked myself if I was brave enough to try spinning cotton on it, which was primarily what I wanted to use it for. My first half-ounce skein (second from right) is a little rough, but by the time I was done with it, I had figured out most of the foibles and immediately put more cotton on the Nano (that's what's on it in the photo). For the final leg of Tour de Fleece 2026, I said, "I'm just going to see how much of the mixed greens I can get out of the way, and I'm going to Navajo-ply it." Out of enough wool for three skeins of equal size, one is completely done, one is ready to be plied as of this morning, and I'll start the final one today. The yarn and full bobbin are shown on the right. For a first Tour, I don't think I did half bad!

Fractal 1

The first skein of fractal spin is done and dusted. The photo shows it before washing and thwacking (I don't "thwack," as such; rather, I "sprong" by looping the skein around both hands and then snapping my arms out to the sides several times over several rotations).  Now it's hanging out on the line, weighted and drying in the warm weather. It turned out much better than expected, and despite the colourway, it even looks kinda like a fractal spin. Before finishing, it measured 106 yards and 1.9 ounces (53 grams). Those figures put it at a worsted weight, although it feels slightly finer (but not fine enough to be DK).

Un Mal Abrigo

"Malabrigo" was an unfortunate choice of name for a company producing wool for spinning, and perhaps I should have paid more attention to it. It means "bad coat" in Spanish, and although most of the wool in this braid is spinning up nicely, the dark bits are absolutely horrible. I've raised sheep, and my hands can tell the difference in the wools of various breeds. The green shades (almost white to blue-green) are Merino, but the browns and blacks are something else, and I'd be inclined to say they're the leftovers which got caught in the combs when this was processed into top. They are coarse, kinky (as opposed to the silky smooth feel of Merino), and so tangled and full of nepps that they refuse to draft. When I come to them, I have to stop spinning and pick them apart. The first three bobbins for my fractal spin did not go well, but I'll ply them anyway. The second half of the braid is progressing a little more smoothly, but I have learned an important lesson: no compres un mal abrigo.

Footnote here: people in the Tour de Fleece group I'm in are confirming that they've had similar experiences with this product. I am definitely never going to buy another Malabrigo product.

Tour de Fleece

Over the years, I've heard "Tour de Fleece" mentioned numerous times, but I never understood what it was. I knew that it ran concurrently with Tour de France, but that was about the size of it. This year, I decided I'd try to find out more. Turns out it's a world-wide "spin-a-thon" which you can participate in either as an individual or as part of a team. Social media is full of groups, some of which are more restrictive than others in the rules they set, but many just tell you to set a personal goal and stick to it for the duration of the bicycle race. I've joined one of the latter type, and for my challenge, I'll be doing my first fractal spin. I bought a four-ounce braid, but being somewhat uncertain about how this is going to work, I'll be starting with half of that. I like to put my handspun up in two-ounce skeins when possible. If all goes well with the first half, I'll spin the second one the same way. And with that, I'm off on my Tour!

Fill-in Spin

With Tour de Fleece set to start in just a couple of days, my initial challenge was to find a "fill-in spin" to keep myself occupied after finishing up the cotton. I had 50 grams of lilac Merino left, and although I knew I wouldn't be able to get it all done (I have other time constraints), I knew I could get one bobbin of singles finished in the time frame. And wouldn't you know it? Now I'm ahead of schedule. At least I have a couple of bobbins of singles waiting to be plied. That should keep me busy until the 4th. As for my Tour challenge, I'm not exactly happy with the braid I picked out for a fractal spin. It didn't divide well, and I'm afraid it's going to turn out muddy, but having never spun a fractal before, perhaps it will work out better than I see it in my mind's eye.

Spin Cycle

No question about it: I am on spin cycle. After finishing the "confetti" yarn, I went digging in my cedar chest to see what I wanted to do next. Several ounces of blue "Charm" (a Merino/bamboo blend) came to the top of the list. I found a smaller packages of it as well, something I remembered setting aside to do with a drop spindle. I spun it all up and thought I was done until I checked the box of drop spindles where I found one more small package and a nearly full spindle which fortunately, I'd spun at the same diameter as the rest of what I'd just completed. Plied, the lot gave me 436 yards.

Then came my reward. I'd promised myself that when I got the "Charm" done, I'd try spinning cotton on the Minstrel. I'd become fairly adept at spinning cotton with a tahkli or on my book charkha, but it's quite a different procedure on a standard spinning wheel. As it turned out, I was pleasantly surprised. Using a very short forward draw, I was able to produce a uniform, fine thread. The 62-yard skein you see here is my first attempt. There are a few lumps and bumps which occurred as I tried to determine the best technique, and now I am well into spinning another much larger skein with far fewer irregularities. In fact, I might get it done in time to put in the Puyallup Fair!

Of Cats and Carders

For years, I've wanted a drum carder to expand my spinning capabilities, but my budget simply would not allow for one. Having tried to use a blending board to combine recycled sari silk with wool, I discovered (painfully) that my repaired shoulder was not up to the task. I put out a plea to my friends, and very shortly received a message from one of them who had one she said she could provide me as a "long-term loan." She even delivered it to my doorstep! There was a bit of a learning curve before I realized that in order to get a decent batt, it wanted to be loaded to at least half the depth of the pins, but once I figured that out, I was ready to make my first real batt. It took five passes through the machine before I was satisfied with the distribution of silk. Pulling it off as rolags rather than a flat batt presented another complication. There was no brake for the drum other than the handle coming into contact with the table at one point in the rotation. In order to get the remaining wool off in rolags, I had to engineer a way to keep the drum from rotating when the handle came around to the 4-o'clock position. Velcro straps solved the problem. It's still a lot of work to pull the rolags off, although it's easier than trying to make them on a blending board. And yes, the Supervisor in the background is curious about mama's new toy, but the pins prickle his nose.

Footnote: over the next 24 hours, I learned a few tricks of the trade for using this device. One, a brake is not necessary if you draw rolags off in layers rather than at the full depth of the batt. It's easy to keep the drum from rolling excessively with thumb pressure. Two, when loading fiber, you should keep it thin enough to read through when you lay it on the feeder tray. I only had to put the fiber through three times before achieving the same results as I did the first time. I'm learning!

Confetti Yarn

I began spinning this "confetti" yarn from an 8-ounce bag on May 26. I was so taken with the end result that I eventually ordered a total of 28 ounces, more than enough to make myself a sweater. The photo really doesn't do it justice. The base wool is a pale warm grey, sprinkled with thousands of variously coloured viscose nepps. The last two skeins finished drying yesterday, and I've already knitted a test swatch (between 9 and 10 o'clock in the photo) to determine gauge. On size 6 needles, the yarn is perfect to use with my favourite raglan pattern, fitting the stated gauge exactly. This isn't the only spinning I've done since that date. I've also turned out a skein of magenta wool for the Fair, a skein of "lilac haze" wool and several other smaller projects. I've really just been spinning my wheels for the last month and a half.

Silly String

The skein is 88 yards, the bobbin 107 yards (I wound it off after I took the photo). That's almost enough Silly String to make a rag rug. And lemme tell ya, this is a lot of work for a "scraps" project! The yarn is made from weaving thrums, leftovers of warp and bobbin extras tied together, then spun into two bobbins-worth of 4-ply, and then spun again to make an 8-ply strand. Hard work or no, the resultant product satisfies two criteria in my book: one, it utilizes something which most people would discard and two, it's colourful, light-hearted and soon to be useful. Hey, that's a win-win as far as I'm concerned. Okay, so I get really tired of tying all those ends together, but I love seeing the combinations come together on the spinning wheel. I figure I need 200-250 yards to make a rug, but now I'm out of thrums!

Silly String

Thrums are a normal by-product of weaving. They are the bits and bobs of thread which cannot be woven due to having to pass through the heddles and reed, and are otherwise known as "loom waste." Their length depends on the individual loom. On Daisy, I allow three feet at the back (loom waste at the front of the loom where they are tied on is minimal). That was about the same for Max, but my old loom wanted an allowance of five feet. When you're talking about 250-500 threads, that's a lot of yardage to rest on your conscience as you throw them in the trash (which, I hate to say, a lot of people do). My Scottish soul can't abide that much wastage, so I usually "half-life" my thrums by moving them to the next smaller loom to use as warp, or I allow extra on a project to be sure I have enough to warp a smaller loom. Even so, I still wind up with thrums, and I flatly refuse to put them in the garbage until they've served as many purposes as possible. I've been weaving zanshiori-style towels and runners by tying the thrums together and using them as weft. The knots give a "down home" feel to the finished pieces, but some people don't appreciate the obvious "leftovers" look. I like it, but that's me. As my thrums jar filled up again, I had another thought for utilizing them. Okay, it was going to be a lot of work, but in the end, I'd have something functional. To that end, I have tied them all together and am now engaged in spinning them by the fours, which will later be re-spun into a thick 8-ply yarn to use as weft in rag rugs. I call the end product "Silly String!" And Merry is way more help than I need, grabbing the wiggly strings as they come up from the cones protecting the balls of wound thread from inquiring paws.

Purple People Eater Progress

Day 116: Like many of you, I am just trying to stay afloat right now, treading water as I watch the ship sinking, too exhausted to swim, and hoping I won't get caught in the suction as it goes to the bottom. To give myself hope of survival (an illusion, perhaps), I am clinging to the flotsam of normalcy by spinning, weaving, loving Merry, who knows but does not understand why his mama is radiating upset. Picking up on my emotional state, he acts out in reaction, getting on counters, getting into things, including my Purple People Eater wool. I caught him before he'd eaten any of it (at least I hope he hadn't), but he had so thoroughly pawed through the combed top that it might as well have just come off a purple sheep. Fortunately, the piece was only the last foot or so of the ounce, and I was able to spin it, albeit slowly and carefully to keep it smooth. How he got the lid off the freezer container I had it stored in is anybody's guess! He's too clever by half.

Spinning The 8-Ball

Day 97: I've been behind the 8-Ball for the last couple of weeks, which is to say that I've been working diligently to spin up eight balls of carded wool in a rainbow range of colours. I bought the package on a whim when Paradise Fibers had their fire sale, although I don't usually like to spin in the woollen style. The first skein I made up (the yellow/gold) is a bit heavier than the others at 37 yards per ounce, but since I intended to make a hat, I will use it as the first colour on a rolled-back edge. The others all come in at roughly 42-45 yards per ounce, each skein weighing approximately 25 grams. The blends are delightful, with (you could probably guess) the green being my favourite.

Spinsterhood

Day 69: From the first time I sat down at my great-grandmother's wheel at four years of age, I knew I was destined to be a spinster. It wasn't until I entered my teens that I realized the second meaning of the word was also likely to apply, and of course by then, the first was no longer relevant. My great-grandma was long gone, and my grandmother who had taught me the art was in a rest home and her wheel had been sold. I forgot all about spinning, except to admire the craftspeople who put on demonstrations, but gradually, a desire to take it up was growing in the back of my mind. When I mentioned to my mother that I'd learned to spin from her mother, she told me, "Grandma didn't know how to spin. She can't have taught you," but I remembered clearly Gma turning the crank by hand as I manipulated what little fiber we'd found caught in the carders into a short piece of yarn. When I finally decided to purchase a wheel, my mother went with me, and to her utter amazement, I sat down in the shop and began to spin. "I told you Gma taught me how," I said. "And I haven't forgotten." That wheel (the Louët I bought that day) is now my "ply wheel." I spin singles on a Kromski Minstrel, and when I have two bobbins full, I set them aside to rest for at least 24 hours. This frees up the Minstrel to spin more singles. I cycle through the process, plying a little, spinning a little, and I've been known to run myself short of bobbins when I'm in "production" mode. Here's just a bit of what I've spun over the last six weeks or so. There's more off camera. The two skeins of Green Chaos and two skeins of Salt & Pepper are done. The orange 8-Ball is plied and ready to be stretched on the warping board, as is the huge bobbin loaded with Raspberry Yogurt. The two bobbins of red 8-Ball are ready to be plied, and the "purple" (a blend of red and blue) 8-Ball is a single waiting for its partner to be spun. Stretched on the warping board in the Loom Room, you'd find yellow 8-Ball and the last skein of Salt & Pepper, now waiting to be soaked and weighted to set the twist. Spinsterhood suits me well.

Preparing Raspberry Yogurt

Day 65: With most of my bobbins for two spinning wheels full of single-ply yarn in the "resting" phase, I was compelled to return to a project which went on hold when Merry moved in. Little catses love fuzzy stuff, and after having to move quickly several times to keep him from swallowing what had adhered to his tongue, I decided the Raspberry Yogurt needed to be locked safely away. Now that he's beginning to understand "That's not for kitties," I felt it was safe to bring it out of hiding, although I still keep the various bits in containers with good lids when I'm not actively handling them.

So...my "Raspberry Yogurt" is a blend of magenta-on-the-red-side, pale lilac (sorta too pink for my tastes) with a touch of creamy white. I begin by applying a layer of magenta to my blending board, top it with roughly half as much lilac, add a small amount of white, and then top it off with another thinner layer of magenta. The wool is then gently combed into the teeth of my homemade blending board so that it can be drawn off with the fibers in alignment crosswise to the way they will be spun (this is a "woolen" preparation, if you've been following along). To draw them off the board, I pinch the exposed tips between two aluminum knitting needles and pull toward myself, keeping the fiber engaged in the board's teeth. When I have an inch or two drawn out, I wind it onto the needles and repeat the process to make a small rolag. In this case, I usually make three or four rolags from each batch of blended wool. The rolags will be spun from the end, and because the fiber has been wound around the needles, it comes off the rolag in a spiral fashion, corkscrewing like a tornado around a central core. Oddly, when spinning from this batch of rolags, I find that a short forward draw results in a more uniform yarn than my customary supported backwards draw. In other words, I let the wool dictate how it wanted to be spun. A good spinner should be able to switch methods of handling the fiber supply as the preparation requires.

Spinning Side Trip

Day 62: With five out of six bobbins of "Salt & Pepper" spun up (two already plied together), I decided to take a short side trip into woolen before working on the last one. Paradise Fibers experienced a fire last spring, and put all their undamaged stock on sale. I picked up several things, among which were the "Green Chaos" I just finished, and a bag of eight 25-gram balls of carded Corriedale in a rainbow array of shades. Before I go on, let me explain a couple of the different ways wool is prepared for handspinning. I have gotten very spoiled on combed top. Also known simply as "top," the individual wool fibers are in alignment lengthwise. The spinner draws the fiber out from its ends to make a durable, dense yarn using the worsted method. Yarn spun worsted has less loft than that spun in the woolen style because the fibers lay close to one another with little air space in between. Top is ideal for spinning in the worsted manner. On the other hand, roving has the fibers more jumbled together. With work, it can be spun to give something approaching worsted, but it is really better for spinning the woolen way. There are many other preparations as well, but the distinctions aren't germane to this particular discussion. However, as you can see in the photo, the preparation I am spinning here is an absolute spaghetti of fibers! This is commercially prepared "carded wool," just as it would be rolled off hand carders and formed into rolags. It can only be spun in the woolen style which results in a less uniform but loftier (and therefore warmer) yarn. As I mentioned at the beginning, I bought a bag of eight balls of carded Corriedale, knowing that I'd have to spin them in the woolen manner despite preferring to spin worsted. I played around mentally with several colour sequence options, and finally just decided to break each ball into two sections, spin each piece as a single and ply them together as a single colour. That way, I can knit a striped hat or scarf, changing colours as desired.

Playing With Patterns

Day 58: This is what happens when the internet goes down but the power stays on. I had two bobbins of plied "Green Chaos" yarn and one of "Salt and Pepper" ready to wind onto the warping board (a handy way of skeining and measuring yardage). They'd had their rest period and were ready to wrap, so I set up the Lazy Kate (Lazy Cat helping more than I appreciated) and wound them off. I took a couple of pictures, and once I got them onto the computer, decided to play around with some of PaintShop Pro's distortion effects. Top right and lower left were made with the "Kaleidoscope" feature, and the other two with "Patterns." There's quite a bit of latitude in the kaleidoscopic treatment, such as number of repeats, number of petals, angle, etc. Okay, I was bored without all you little people in my computer to keep me company, but this is also productive time. Sometimes when I'm playing around with these virtual techniques, the results inspire me to create weaving or knitting patterns. The upper left looks particularly interesting if translated to card-weaving.

With Merry's Gracious Permission

Day 54: This, with Merry's gracious permission, is what I have accomplished on the spinning front in the last month. Admittedly, I had part of one of the bobbins of "Green Chaos" done, but only as a singles. Here, both bobbins hold the finished double-ply yarn. It is roughly a DK weight. The "Salt and Pepper" bobbins are both single ply. They have to rest a few days to set the twist before I can ply them into a sock/fingering weight yarn. When I am done spinning all eight ounces of "Salt and Pepper," I will have three skeins (i.e., six bobbins of singles plied onto three bobbins. You may have noticed that there are two different types of bobbin here. I spin the singles on the Kromski Minstrel, and ply on my old Louët. My little Helper no longer tries to grab spinning wheel drive belts after having his nose gently sanded, but I still can't leave yarn without covering it with a lavender-scented towel. Lavender is a natural insect repellent, and it seems to work equally well as a curious-kitten deterrent. He gave it a good sniff, shook his head, batted his eyes and walked away.

Spinning Salt-and-Pepper

Day 46: Much of my life went on hold when Tippy died, partly because Merry came to live with me and demanded almost all my attention, but also because I just couldn't find the motivation to do any of the things I normally enjoy. Merry has settled down now (not completely, by any means!) and once again, I'm able to do things like weave and spin without having to hop up every minute and a half to extract him from whatever trouble he's found to get in. At last, I was able to finish the singles for a mixed bag of wool in green shades, and after perusing my stash, decided to spin "salt-and-pepper" from a blended top. To get the salt-and-pepper effect, I am tearing off chunks roughly six inches long, then separating black lengths from white as best I can. Some bits refuse to divide nicely, so they become shades of grey. When two singles are plied, this will become a delightully heathered yarn. I know it sounds strange to separate a blended wool, but my experience with spinning the fleece of a Jacob's sheep (naturally black and white) was a good example of optical blending. The Jacob's fleece yarn was just grey.

Tools Of The Trade

Day 34: Every discipline has its jargon. If you were unfamiliar with spinning and weaving, you might be able to infer which of these three objects is a warping board because the green thread is an obvious clue. However, could you say which of the other two is a niddy-noddy and which is a lazy kate? Perhaps not, although you'd stand a 50% chance of getting it right with a guess. The warping board is used to measure out the warp for a weaving project. Threads are wound over a sequence of pegs until the desired length is reached, and then the path is reversed (well, not quite exactly reversed, but we'll save that explanation for another time). A niddy-noddy (here shown in dark wood) is used in spinning to wind finished yarn off the bobbin. Niddy-noddies are usually constructed to measure a specific length per pass, i.e., a yard, a meter, etc. The ends of the device are T-shaped, and one can be turned at 90 degrees when in use. The yarn is wrapped over each end, and if you like, you can sing a little ditty to keep track of where you are: "Niddy-noddy, niddy-noddy, Two heads, one body. Here's one, t'aint one, 'Twill be one by and by" (or any of several regional variations). A lazy kate (here shown in a tensionable version, left) is also a spinner's implement, and is used to hold bobbins of single-ply yarn so that they can be plied together. The tensioning spring keeps the bobbins from running away with themselves as they build up speed. Due to a significant lack of space in my Loom Room, these three tools have to share the same hanger until called into service. The warp currently on the warping board is waiting patiently for me to empty the floor loom. It's a good idea to measure it and leave it stretched for a few days before mounting, but I always like to have a "warp in waiting" all prepped and ready to go.

Best Year Yet

Day 348: Forgive me for a moment of vanity, but I think I've earned some bragging rights. The Washington State Fair (also known as the Puyallup Fair) is one of the ten largest fairs in the world. "World," I said, and this year, each of my three entries (two in weaving and one in spinning) took first place. The judges' comments included "Excellent seam join" (that on the overshot which required joining three panels invisibly), "nice even beat" (same piece), "lovely work" (the bamboo fingering weight yarn) and "beautiful selvedges" (for a distance of five yards, I might add!). Each piece scored 97 points out of a possible 100. This has been my best performance in the six years I have been entering the competitions, the first time I have taken first place for every category in which I submitted my work. I have received one or more blue ribbons in weaving, spinning, tatting, hardanger, bobbin lace, knitting and crocheting, as well as several second-place awards. I generally submit two or three pieces each year, and have earned ribbons for every one. I've never entered a quilt!