All kinds of distractions!

Well, hello there!
I'm sorry for the absence, but there has been so many things to do now that summer is here. But I suspect y'all are familiar with the phenomenon :) Gardening, sun bathing, kayaking, local spinning get-togethers, knitting, sewing, it all has to be done!

I am still procrastinating taking photos of my finished linen outfit. There is nothing wrong with it, it's just me never getting round to making the effort to dress up.
Besides, these last weeks I've been properly busy spinning wool. During the weeks of Le Tour de France cycling race, there was a tour of its own for spinning called Tour de Fleece, on Ravelry.

Norway had a national team, and I guesstimate we were about 30 spinners, spinning and posting our produce online every day. It was fun and inspiring, and I got lots of spinning done! And at the end there were prizes drawn! I actually won something, but I don't yet know what it is. Only that it's spinning related :)

Here's what I spun; first up my fractal yarn I wrote about in my previous post. I am very happy with it, but I won't see the true magic of it until I knit it!

Fractal spun Corriedale wool from YummyYarns on Etsy.

Next up is wool I actually dyed myself! One thread is gradient blues, and the other thread is from yellow, orange, red and every shade in between :)

Selfdyed Norwegian White wool, Ashford acid dyes.

This next skein is Finnish wool, that I bought off Etsy, from a seller called Vittoria Segreta. It is hand dyed by her, but she did not make the roving. I wasn't entirely happy with this wool, it was coarse and contained quite a lot of vegetable matter. The blue colour stained my fingers badly while spinning, and the yarn ended up quite scratchy and has no bounce or spring. A shame really, as I love the colourway. This is also fractal yarn, but since it is such poor quality, I really don't know what to do with it...

Next, is Norwegian fur sheep wool. The grey is natural, and is the same I used for my Sheeply vest.

I made two 100g skeins, and they are both chain plied on the spinning wheel.

Lastly, is another skein of my own dye. It's 50/50 fur sheep and Norwegian white. The dark thread is fur sheep, dyed dark navy blue. So dark in fact, that it look almost black. It was my very first attempt, and I overdid the colour blend, to put it mildly! Oh well, live and learn. The yarn is lovely, and one of my most successful spins :)

I also used my Turkish drop spindle, but it is so slow compared to the wheel, so I only use it for taking along in my bag if I'm going somewhere that involves waiting or riding along in a car! The fibre here is hand dyed Polwarth, a lovely soft wool (like fine merino) and I'm spinning it as thin as I can, and plying it directly in the spindle.

I also made the time to go pick some wild raspberries :) The forests are overflowing with different berries now, so the winters supply of jam should be sorted! Oh how I love homemade jam :)

I also have some exciting sewing projects going now (rockabilly circle skirt dress, anyone?), so hopefully there will pop up something interesting for you non-wool-people soon ;)

Enjoy yourselves, until next time!