Manspinner 🏳️‍🌈

Picked some fresh eucalyptus polyanthemos for the dye pot. Color looks great, but how will it stick?

My haul from the County Fair: Homespun 2-ply Pima and Natural Red cottons on the left; 3-ply Pima, Red and Green cottons on the right; and 3-ply Merino wool dyed with prickly pear in the center.

👀

I soaked a skein of homespun cotton today and decided to take pictures of it wet to run through the kaleidoscope app. It is three ply, singles of white Pima, natural red and natural green cottons, spun on my great wheel Sacramento, wet plied on my even greater wheel Broncobuster.

Day 10: Finished off this batch of crochet cotton. I reckon it would sit somewhere between #10 and #20. (I sure wish I knew how that was figured.) Wet plying worked well, and it measured out at just over 100 yards weighing a little over 14 grams. #tourdefleece.

Day 9: When I spin on a Great Wheel, I ply on my Traditional, which needs a lot of pedaling. So I tried plying this three-strand ball of Upland cotton on the Broncobuster, my biggest wheel. And I did it wet as an experiment, hence the bowl. Went fast, worked well, results soon. #tourdefleece.

Day 8: Plying some Upland cotton from the Great Wheel using a homemade rig I call the "Bed o' Nails." It helps control the pigtails, and I can worry about the spin later. "One crisis at a time," I like to say. #tourdefleece.

Thanks. Little, but a lot of walking in those things.

Considering what it looked like raw, I was gobsmacked. It will be interesting to see how that translates in the dye pot if and when the time comes. Cheers.

I think you're right, but it's so tempting. I do like combing for getting out the VM matter, though, so I'll stick with the plan I reckon. I also want to try putting less on the combs to help control the process better. Cheers.

Day 7: I want a three-ply with two colors, and debated -- two reds or two white? I decided to make a cob half red, half white, alternating every four walks or so on the Great Wheel. The cottons are white Pima and natural red. #tourdefleece.

Day 6: To comb or not to comb, that is the question, especially when the drum carder is so quick and easy. This Border Leicester is very lustrous, long-stapled and kinky, with a bit of VM in the mix, so I opted for the combs, but I could change my mind after a test spin. #tourdefleece.

Thanks for asking. I'm doing OK today, still stiff and sore in some places but better than yesterday. I'm a firm believer that the worst is always the day after the day after, and I'm already ahead of that schedule. Cheers.

And I'm old enough to remember when you wouldn't do that because you didn't want the other folks on your party line to talk about it.

Same sentiment, but my vocabulary was a little different.

I think we'll both be fine. We've been through a lot together.

Sore but OK, thanks.

Day 5: Day 4 didn't go so well. This is Emmy, my first wheel, and she's been under repair all afternoon. I had a fainting spell yesterday, swooned, and landed on her. It was not pretty. I cannibalized another wheel for a broke part, and she seems to work fine. Me, sore but OK. #tourdefleece.

Day 4: Planning to finish off a batch of merino, spun long-draw on my first and favorite wheel. Two bobbins down and one to go. A natural overspinner, I'm trying to cut back on my spins after the draw. We'll see how it goes. #tourdefleece.

Day 3: An Aussie friend taught me the word "ort." Today I basically spun orts. Here's the bottom of the ort pan by my great wheel as seen through the kaleidoscope filter. Funny how "ort" autocorrects to "art." Could be a lesson in there somewhere. Cheers. #tourdefleece.

Day 2: While waiting for a fleece to dry today, I decided to finish off a cob of natural red cotton on the great wheel. I'm planning on plying it with the pima cotton on the other cob. #tourdefleece.

Thanks for the comment. Here's the before picture. The staple looks very long, so I reckon I'll comb it and spin from the fold. The time spent getting that County Fair fleece from raw to yarn will likely dwarf the $60. Cheers.

This year I plan to post along with the Tour de Fleece mob, starting today. To begin, I'm washing 720 grams of Border Leicester. Even the raw wool looked good through the kaleidoscope filter. #tourdefleece.

Tinkered in my workshop July 4 making a riser for a hat block I inherited. Who needs a 7 1/2 inch crown? Since that's where my old bell lives, I opened the garage door and gave it a good ring in honor of the day. Cheers.

But I think it is in the “Pirates of Penzance.”

From today's Fourth Circuit decision in the Abrego
Garcia case: "The Executive may succeed for a time in weakening the courts, but over time history will script the tragic gap between what was and all that might have been, and law in time will sign its epitaph."

Maybe it's working.

My Dad always said that when the rich want to give back, ask them why they took it in the first place.

Even red neck Alamogordo NM has had enough

A box of upland cotton came in the mail today and it spins like a dream.