Tour De Fleece 2025
Hello friends,
The month of July is known to yarn spinners all over the world as Tour De Fleece month, where spinners who want to join in, prepare their spinning supplies and spinning wheels for spinning along beside the Tour De France. On the days that the cyclists spin their wheels, so do Tour De Fleece spinners. It's an online spin-along, and spinners from all over the world often share their spinning on social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and Ravelry, during the 21 days of the Tour De France.
You don't need to officially sign up to anything, or pay any money, or join a team (though some people do), just spin when you can during the Tour De Fleece and make whatever yarn that appeals to you. My goal this year was just to spin every day of the Tour De Fleece, using whatever roving and fleece I had in stash, using both my drop spindle and spinning wheel.
The first project I spun up was a 100 gram roving of Union Fibre's fine Haunui breed sheep in shades of pink, purple, yellow, green, brown and teal.
I spun up the singles on my Majacraft Suzie Pro on two bobbins, with the intention to make a 2 ply yarn. The plied yarn was so pretty, coming out at an approximately fingering weight/4 ply yarn with a total of 237 m of yarn. I don't have any plans for this yarn yet, so it'll just go into storage along with all my other spun yarn.
Next up to spin was 200 grams of Ashford 80% Merino/20% Mulberry Silk roving in the colourway Gelato. I just love to periodically spin up some of Ashford's beautiful colourways for fun, with the intention to use the spun yarn for handwoven and handspun scarves for my Felt store Hearth and Oak.
Once the two single bobbins were spun, it was time to ply them 2-ply style. The resulting yarn was approximately fingering weight/4 ply and had a length of 423 m.
After a quick warm soak to set the twist in the yarn, my gelato yarn was all finished and ready for weaving.
I just love the shades of blue, pink and white, and I think it'll make a pretty nice scarf when it's all woven up.
I just loved making so much time for spinning in July, it's such a cold month and it's really cozy to spin on my spinning wheel on freezing winter nights. I already look forward to next Tour De Fleece next year.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
Want to discuss my post? Feel free to chat with me on Instagram or Mastodon or Bluesky.
Spinning Union Fibre's Dyed Haunui Purple Roving
Hello friends,
Recently my friend Karyn was at Capital Fibre Fest in Wellington, and she knows I'm always on the look out for new fibre to spin on my drop spindle and spinning wheel, and she came across Union Fibre's booth, where Bonnie had for sale a bunch of different colourways. Karyn chose two rovings for me, in colours she knew I would l love.
First for me to spin up was a 100 gram roving of purple Union Fibre colourway (colourway not labelled on the paper wrapping), dyed with of medium Haunui Fibre.
Haunui fibre comes from a breed of sheep known as Haunui, which is grown on a family farm based in the foothills of South Canterbury, New Zealand. Haunui are known for its lustrous fibers and strong crimp, and it strikes a beautiful balance between softness and durability.
As I began spinning up the Haunui fibre on my drop spindle, the fibre was indeed soft and easy to spin, much more than Romney and Corriedale. It was such a pleasure to spin over the coming hours and days.
Once the drop spindle became full, I transferred it onto bobbins on my Majacraft Suzie Pro. I prefer to ply on my spinning wheel, as this is much easier than faster than on a drop spindle.
Once the fibre was fully spun up on two bobbins, it was time to ply the yarn as a two ply. It didn't take very long at all to ply on my jumbo plying bobbin.
Once transferred to a niddy noddy, the purple and brown shades of the dyed yarn really showed how beautiful the yarn was all spun up.
After a quick wash in some wool wash, the yarn was left to dry in the dining room in front of the winter fires over the coming days.
The final 100 gram 2 ply dyed yarn is of fingering weight/4 ply width, and came out at a total of 285 metres all spun up.
I really love how deep and cozy the shades of purple and brown look in the yarn. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the spun yarn, sometimes it's just fun to spin for the hell of it. It'll eventually find a home in a knitting or weaving project in the future. For now it's just nice to have on display, and to squish it sometimes...
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
Want to discuss my post? Feel free to chat with me on Instagram or Mastodon or Bluesky.
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