The Strathearn Tour de Fleece 2012 is over

Yes, after spinning every day for three weeks, the 2012 Tour de Fleece is over. We kept our Strathearn version simple - just spin what you can, when you can and record the length of yarn produced.

Some of the Strathearn Tour de Fleece 2012 entries

On the final day we got together at Home Farm, Culdees, Muthill - home of Strathearn Fleece and Fibre - to spin the last leg of the Tour together. Not quite the Champs Elysees but Linda's home baking and the tranquil surroundings, with sheep baaa-ing outside, made it a very enjoyable day. Some people had forgotten to bring their TdF record sheets, some had forgotten to bring their TdF yarns, but clearly it was the taking part that mattered and no-one was in a competitive mood. Some of the yarns are shown in the photo above.
As there are some people who took part even though they could not join us in person, the winners will be announced at the weekend, when everyone has had time to send in their record sheets.

My own TdF yarns, at the start of the final day, so the yellow bobbin is still unplied. I'll tell you more about the multi-coloured bobbins in a later post!

For my own Tour, I decided to finish spinning some alpaca (from Strathearn Fleece and Fibre) - the best natural black I have ever seen, and some lovely ginger that matches my cat. Then I went on to spinning some of the wool I dyed in my mega dyeing spree back in March. I really enjoyed having the added impetus to spin every day, and kept myself motivated by posting what I had spun each day on facebook. My total length of finished yarn (mostly 2 ply) was 1335 metres - 20 skeins, all different. I also spun in a few different places - mostly at home in Auchterarder, but also in London, in my uncle's beautiful garden in West Sussex, at the Lochearnhead Highland Games and starting and finishing at Culdees - so literally a Tour.
Join us next year?

In the afternoon I ran a Fleece sorting and Fibre Preparation workshop. I demonstrated sorting a lovely Ryeland fleece, then everyone spread out their own fleeces and got on with sorting the wool into three or four different qualities. As usual when I'm teaching, I forgot to take photos! It was fascinating to see how different all the fleeces were - four Texel cross, a Jacob, two gorgeous Blue Texels and a Shetland. All except the Shetland were from Strathearn Fleece and Fibre, the four Texel crosses being from the Culdees flock, chosen before they were shorn, at our Fleece on the Hoof day last month. The Blue Texels are so lovely I succumbed to one as well as the Ryeland, so my fleece shed once more needs the door wedged shut with a table pushed against it!!

As always we had a lovely day at Home Farm, Culdees, and I'm looking forward to our next spining day there. New workshop dates will be posted (under the Workshops tab above) in the next day or two.