Hello friends,

And welcome back to my blog after a couple of weeks away. It was lovely to have a chance to rest and recharge while on holiday, but with July comes the start of another Tour de Fleece, and the opportunity to spend some time rediscovering my fibre stash, and enjoying some cosy spinning time while the weather is cold outside.

Now, I don't know about you, but I have quite a large fibre stash. Over the years since learning to spin, I've picked up fibre and fleeces from online shopping, in-person stores, craft events, and even from friends who kindly bring treasures home for me from fibre festivals. Somehow, fibre always seems to find its way into my stash, and despite my best efforts, it seems to accumulate much faster than I can spin it into yarn.

With all this in mind, I decided that this year I wasn't going to buy any more fibre for Tour de Fleece 2026, but instead shop my stash. I opened the wardrobe in my craft room and began pulling out boxes and containers until I found one filled with fibre, ready to be rediscovered.

After spending some time sorting through the box, and exploring the fibre within, I finally settled on a plan for Tour de Fleece 2026. These are the fibres I've chosen to spin during this year's Tour.

This first project is 300 g of natural brown Romney lambswool from Duncraig. I originally bought it as an unwashed fleece, and at some point over the years I washed it and carded it into batts on my Ashford wide drum carder. It's been sitting patiently in my stash for a couple of years, and Tour de Fleece seems like the perfect opportunity to finally spin it into yarn.

Next up are two batts from Dark Harbour Yarn in the colourways Big-Eared Woolly and Wrinkle-Lipped Free-Tailed. These batts are made up of Corriedale, Merino, silk noil, and Tencel, and I couldn't resist bringing them home with me from Unwind 2026 back in March.

Also making an appearance this year is a Corriedale batt called Tequila Sunrise from Deep Creek Woolworks. I picked this batt up at Unwind 2026 in March as well, and its warm, vibrant colours were simply too beautiful to leave sitting in the stash any longer.

Tucked away at the bottom of the box was an unknown amount of a 50/50 Merino and alpaca blend left over from a previous project. Back when I lived in Wellington, one of my husband's workmates gave me some raw alpaca fleece. After washing the fleece, I blended it with 50% Merino fibre and carded it together on my drum carder. I then dyed the fibre in aurora-inspired colours and handspun it into yarn for a Southern Skies shawl. This small amount of fibre is what remained after the project was finished.

And finally, I unearthed various odds and ends of Merino fibre in shades of purple that I dyed many years ago, along with a bag of silver Angelina sparkle fibre. Thinking the two might work well together, I pulled out my drum carder and blended them into a sparkly purple batt. I have no idea what this fibre will eventually become, but I suspect it will be something fun.

I dusted off my camera and filmed the process of blending this sparkly purple batt together. There's something rather satisfying about watching colourful fibres transform into a finished batt, so if you'd like to see the process, you can watch the short video below.

So, with my Tour de Fleece fibre choices finally made, all that remains is to sit down at the spinning wheel and begin. There is something rather satisfying about rediscovering forgotten treasures hidden away in my stash, and giving them their turn to become yarn.

I'm looking forward to many cosy hours of spinning over the coming weeks, and I'm excited to see what these fibres become along the way. Whether I manage to spin everything or not, I know I'll enjoy the journey.

Have a wonderful day,

Julie-Ann

If you'd like to continue the conversation, you can find me on Instagram, Mastodon, Bluesky, and Facebook.

I'd love to hear what you're spinning, making, or creating this winter.

Tags: 2026, Crafting, Crafts, Fibre, Fleece, Merino, Spinning, Spinning Wheel, Tour De Fleece, Winter, Wool, Yarn

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.

Tags: 2025, 4 Ply, Ashford, Crafting, Crafts, Fiber, Fibre, Fleece, Haunui Fibre, Spinning, Spinning Wheel, Tour De Fleece, Union Fibre, Yarn

Hello friends,

Yes, I went and bought two more raw fleeces, but in my defense, it was only 500 grams of fleece each. I saw a social media post from Random Farm in April announcing the release of their raw fleeces after they'd been taken to the 2025 National Black and Coloured Sheep Breeders Association Competition. After searching through the photos of their fleeces available, I was really tempted by two raw fleeces, from the sheep Tilda and Biscuit, so I bought 500 grams of each of them.

First up we have Tilda the sheep, who is a silver grey pure-bred Romney, with fleece of 34 microns across and a staple length of 13 cm. Her fleece came second in the Strong Handcraft Fleece section at the National Black and Coloured Sheep Breeders Association Competition in 2025.

With her fleece I scoured it using my previous method of scouring wool using Unicorn Scour Power, but this time I used a new drying method.

Usually I put scoured fleeces into plastic trays to dry while outside, but I have the problem of fleece trying to blow away in high winds, and also when I bring it inside Missy and Rosie cats think of them as warm and fluffy cat beds. I saw a social media post a while ago of someone using a foldable fish drying mesh rack to dry fleeces and yarn, so I was interested in buying one, and I eventually found it on Temu after I couldn't find any for sale locally in New Zealand. I opted for the four tier rack with zip closures as it gave me many options for drying fleece, fibre, and yarn. It also folds down into a very small space for storage.

And the new system works great for both outside the house, and also for hanging inside near the fireplace on cold nights. It didn't take very long at all to dry, hung up safe from both winds and cats. A quick flick carding of Tilda's dried fleece shows a nice clean and long staple with great crimp in the fleece.

Biscuit the sheep is a silvery-grey romney/corriedale fleece, with romney lustre and corriedale softness. Her fleece was shorn when she was 18 months old, so this is her two-tooth fleece, at 31 microns and a staple length of 14 cm. Biscuit's fleece came 4th in the Mature Strong Handcraft Fleece section at the National Black and Coloured Sheep Breeders Association Competition in 2025.

Random Farm suggests spinning this fleece semi-worsted/worsted style, which require wool combs to align all the fleece in the same direction. I have actually have a set of wool combs ordered from Majacraft, but I'm waiting for them to arrive so I can try this method of fleece preparation.

When dried I flick carded a lock of Biscuit's scoured and washed fleece, and it turned out just beautiful, with two toned colours on a long staple. I'm looking forward to using my new wool combs with this fleece when they arrive.

With four scoured and clean fleeces now in storage, I will not buying any more fleece for quite a while. The next step for all these fleeces is to process them for spinning, by either drum carding them, or using my wool combs.

And I just wanted to say a big thank you to Random Farm, who gave me permission to use their photos of Tilda and Biscuit the sheep in this blog post. Please check out Random Farm's Facebook and Felt pages to see all their lovely fleece available.

There won't be a blog post next Thursday, as I'm having cataract surgery on my left eye next Wednesday. I am planning on posting a blog a week after that if all goes to plan.

Have a wonderful day.

Julie-Ann

Want to discuss my post? Feel free to chat with me on Instagram or Mastodon or Bluesky.

Tags: 2025, Autumn, Corriedale, Crafting, Crafts, Fiber, Fibre, Fleece, Fleece Preparation, Fleece Processing, Hobbies, Romney, Scouring, Sheep

Hello friends,

Over this past summer I processed a second raw sheep's fleece. I hadn't planned on buying another fleece, with one already waiting to be washed and processed in the garage, but when I saw a new trader called Random Farm selling raw fleeces on the Felt market place, I couldn't resist supporting a new fleece producer.

I bought a raw fleece from a Finn-Romney cross lamb ram called Silver. As a lamb he produced a beautiful silvery grey-and-white fleece, with the colour changes along the staple, with dark tips, and paler shades towards the cut end.

When it arrived it had a lovely soft handle, good lustre, and locks that separated easily. The locks had an average staple length of 7-8cm, and they suggested to spin it long draw for a soft woollen yarn. It was a very clean fleece with minimal vegetable matter.

Having recently scoured and washed my Gotland Fleece, I decided to use the same method of using Unicorn Scour Power, as the resulting clean fleece was in good condition.

It wasn't too long before I'd scoured all the batches of raw fleece on a sunny day. After they'd dried, I flick carded a lock to see the final product. The lock has a dark brown/grey tip, and a silvery grey shade at the cut end. It has a very beautiful fine crimp, and the lock is quite smooth and fluffy.

I'm very happy with the final result, and once I get my current spinning project completed, and spin up a 100 gram sliver of fiber for a friend, I think I'll get started spinning this yarn.

Have a wonderful day

Julie-Ann

Want to discuss my post? Feel free to chat with me on Instagram or Mastodon or Bluesky

Tags: 2025, Fleece, Fleece Preparation, Fleece Processing, Sheep, Summer