So today marks the start of the Tour de Fleece, and annual spinning challenge that concedes with the Tour de France. I participated last year and found that keeping up with teams took more time than the actual spinning, and with my new job (and stupid commute) I want to save as much time for knitting, spinning and weaving as possible, so I'm not participating in the Rav group, but I do have some goals for the three weeks of the Tour.
Goal:
- To be able to spin the yarn that I set out to spin (rather than ending up with the yarn that the wheel wants to make)
It seems like the best way to meet this goal is to spin a whole bunch of fluff that I have no plans for. Part of my issue is that I feel like everything I spin has to be useable, that if not then the fluff is wasted, and I don't want to waste my fluff so I sometimes don't spin what I have for fear of ruining it. So I have pulled out a few different batts, braids and fleece that are already in handy sample size (so no worries about not being able to knit with it) or I'm not totally in love with but still really like to get into and not be fearful while spinning and take some chances.
So I guess there is a second goal of the TdF, spend enough time spinning to meet my first goal. To that end I aim to spin at least 10 minutes a day, with a minimum of 30 minutes of spinning on days I don't go to work. This should give me the time to actually do some spinning, before the Ravellenic Games (formerly the Ravelympics) and knitting take over for the end of July and into August.
So with the perfect weather I may be taking my spinning wheel outside for the rest of the weekend and seeing how far I can get before Tuesday (thanks to Canada Day tomorrow I have a four day weekend.