Osborn Fiber Studio

If you don’t know, there’s an annual event for handspinners called the “Tour de Fleece.” It was hatched as an excuse to do a lot of spinning while watching the Tour de France on TV, and it snowballed over the years into a massive online event, spanning the six weeks of both the men’s and women’s Tours. This year, I am co-captaining the Wool n’ Spinning team! Feel free to join our friendly group on Ravelry, and post with #teamwoolnspinning and #tdf2023 on Instagram if you like!

As promised in yesterday’s monthly roundup post, I am going to share all about what I’m spinning for TDF. But in between last night when I wrote that post, and right now as I write this one, my plans have changed.

As of this morning, I had already put in a lot of work getting ready for this spin, planning, prepping, sampling, and even swatching. The two stipulations that guided me were: (a) I wanted to use the green roving that I dyed with some of the leftover dyes from Dyeapalooza (more on which in a couple of weeks). (b) I wanted to spin for the Attune shawl by Andrea Mowry.

My plan: Two colours. Main colour: two plies of the above green, and one ply of the same wool in dark brown, blended 50/50 with qiviut.

Contrast colour: Suffolk roving blended 5:1 with qiviut. Seen in batt form below, under the green.

I even spun up a little sample and swatched it to make sure the contrast was right. I started with a 2:1 suffolk/qiviut blend, which I thought I liked better. This swatch was really interesting because of the effect of shadow in two-colour brioche. On each side, one colour is literally in shadow, receding in three dimensions. It is literally darker, in shadow.

With the grey CC in front (above), the green MC was in shadow, which increased the value difference. This side looks great. With the green MC in front (below), the grey CC was in shadow, and the value differences almost disappeared. The Attune shawl has different two-colour stitch patterns throughout, so I wanted a big enough difference that you’d see the two colours even in garter stitch and fisherman’s rib. After this swatch, I went back to the carder and made 5:1 Suffolk:qiviut batts.

I was all ready to go. Seeing as the Attune SAL/KAL had already started, and I was continuing my spindling streak, I went ahead and made my first skein. I busted my bum a bit to get the skein finished last night, so I could have a fresh start on a new skein for TDF, starting this morning. I didn’t quite get the whole thing plied, but I snuck off this morning and plied the rest.

When I skeined it up and held it in my hands, my brain slammed on the brakes. It was very clear to me: this yarn does not want to be a shawl. The wool which dominates the green yarn, a very rustic roving from Custom Woolen Mills in Alberta, is very rough. 1/6th qiviut was not enough to soften it up.

Actually more concerning to me, though, is the colour. I love this colour: it is the dirt-stick-leaf colour that makes my granola soul happy. But it is not the right colour for an accessory. Paired with a cream or grey, this wants to be a garment. I want the plain, earthy colours on my body, and then fun pop colours in a shawl. If I were to put these colours in a shawl, it would be difficult to make my base layers boring enough for these colours to look good.

I am a little disappointed. My plan was so great! The ideas! The symmetry between the yarns! They certainly would look great together. But not as Attune.

It was back to the stash to think of a new dominant colour for Attune. In an accessory, I want something with more pizzazz, something expressive. I was digging through my collection of braids, looking for a good combo, when an idea popped fully formed into my mind. This yarn!

I spun this yarn for my very first TDF with Wool n’ Spinning, way back in 2017. I actually made a video about it, back when I was first playing with vlogging. It’s a combo-ply shifting between three handpainted braids with similar colours in This yarn suffers from the opposite problem from the green: I always imagined it being a contrast colour in a garment, but it’s really too bright for me to imagine putting in a sweater. All this time, it’s been wanting to be a shawl! It’s the right gauge, the right quantity, and it’s in this amazing gradient that was always going to be hard to work into a sweater. This is it.

But… what do I spin to go with it?

I could still spin the suffolk/qiviut blend. The texture would be quite different between the two yarns – the skeins are BFL/silk, worsted-spun, smooth, from top, on the denser side. The grey is a down breed with woolen prep – if I spin it on my spindles, it will be woolen as woolen can be, though I could spin it on the e-spinner that is coming my way soon (oh my, yes!). The grey would tone down the brightness of it, which I like in theory, but the yarns would be very close in value. I can’t be entirely sure that would work.

It looks like I will have to start this TDF by doing more sampling. Regardless, I will be spinning these batts, and I can use them with the BFL/silk, or use them with the green yarn in a sweater. And seeing as I will be knitting a shawl, I can “swatch” by just casting on for Attune.

Just out of the gate, and already a hard pivot. I can tell this will be an exciting tour. I’m going to get my spindle spinning now, and look forward to seeing everyone’s bobbin and spindle pics over the next several weeks! Happy spinning!