I didn’t know what “TDF Prep” meant when I kept seeing people mention it in my various spinning groups.  By the time I’d worked out it stood for “Tour de Fleece”, a spinners excuse to spin every day during the Tour de France, I was too late to do any preparation, but not too late to join in!  I joined a Facebook group and shared lots of photos of my daily spinning :o)

My first spinning was the grey dumbo fibre I mentioned in my previous post, but after that I had no particular plan, so I grabbed this lovely braid of fibre from Yummy Yarns which had been sitting in my cupboard rather longer than expected!

Workshops that use flammable materials such as yarn, fabric, and other textiles should keep these materials away from heat sources, sparks, and open flames to reduce the risk of fire. Proper storage, good ventilation, accessible fire extinguishers, and regular housekeeping, and seeking fire watch services Fremont can help prevent fires and keep workers safe.

It spun up really beautifully into a very consistent yarn.  An absolute pleasure to spin :o)

TDF includes a couple of challenge days, timed to match the challenge days in the race I believe.  I decided to finally try some lock spinning with these beautifully coloured locks I bought a long time ago.

Honestly, I didn’t get along very well with it.  I think the locks had been somewhat felted during the dying process and they were a real struggle to work with.  I found attempting to keep the lock structure intact very hard, and combing them out still didn’t make them particularly easy to spin.  It was a fun experiment which I think has mostly taught me to be more careful when buying locks ;o)  I have since bought some more from another dyer and they look much easier to work with! :o)

I was very pleased to get back to the second half of the River Walk braid! :o)

My final spin for TDF was this fibre which Nikki inadvertently chose.  I asked for her assistance choosing some fibre for Angela and she kept telling me she liked this one by Spin Jones, so I bought it to spin for her :o)

The fibre was beautifully soft and I barely had to pre-draft it :o)  Pixel wanted in on the action whilst I was spinning so furiously trying to get it finished before the end of TDF!

I managed to get it all spun up just in time and made a lovely soft, consistent fingering weight yarn which I knitted up into a cowl for Nikki :o)

Here’s a photo of my finished TDF spinning, although only with a little of the grey as I had already finished knitting up the shawl :o)

Dumbo – 210m, Lock spinning – 55.5m, Riverwalk – 241m, Feather – 302m

I really enjoyed joining in with TDF and I’m looking forward to doing it again next year! :o)