Tour de Fleece 2009, c'est fini...

...and I spun more than I thought I would. Still not as much as I could have if I didn't have vacation and illness thrown into the mix.

Here is my final finished yarn (I made the collage for the Ravelry Tour de Fleece group):

Some of the specs are in the collage, but are all of them:
Started 7/21/09
Finished 7/26/09
Merino top from Yarn Wench in Sea Nymph 2
Spun and plied on Lendrum DT folding wheel
2 singles plied with Sulky Rayon thread
Yield: 229.5 yards; 14 WPI

Maybe next year I'll get to spin more for the Tour...

I also finished weaving the Deep Blue Sea shawl. I haven't taken any pictures of it yet, so you'll have to wait until Wednesday. I have to say that I was not as thrilled with this shawl as I wanted to be. While I normally love Socks That Rock Lightweight yarn, I was not in love with the skeins I used for the warp. There were knots in both skeins, lots off unattractive over-spun sections, and one weak area that resulted in a frayed and split warp thread that I had to repair. The over-spun areas are not evident in the main weaving area, but were quite visible in the fringe even after I washed the shawl. I ended up using a twisted fringe technique to hide the over-spun strands.

Using a superwash yarn for the warp was a gamble and if I had used the weft yarn (100% Corriedale, not superwash) I originally planned to use, it would not have been an issue. However, I used a Seawool yarn that did not "full" very much after washing (not surprising given that I had washed the yarn after spinning, so it had probably fulled as much as it was going to already). The combination of these two yarns means that you can clearly see where I had to add new yarn. It's a good thing I made this for me...I could never give this to someone as a gift!

For the next woven item, I think I'm going to try cotton placemats or a cotton table runner. Or anything that's not superwash!