Practice

I have finally learned to spin, well enough that I am starting to acquire a fibre stash (HEY, don't you look at me that way!) I was almost caught up with my spinning but I may have had a weak moment in the face of a 50% off sale on BFL at Gaspereau Valley Fibres. I think I came home with slightly over a kilo in two different colourways. It's so pretty. I'll show you, maybe tomorrow. It's way too dark now to take photos of fibre. And there may have been another incident with an online fibre sale. (It hasn't arrived yet, so maybe I just dreamed it.)

Why am I going on about this when I should be knitting down my stash? (In my defence, the stash would be reducing if I stopped introducing new acquisitions to it.) Well, I discovered some like-minded ladies and we've decided to form a team and participate in the International Back to Back Wool Challenge. Yay! I am really, really excited. I've watched the Sheep Thrills at Gaspereau for a couple years now and it looks like a whole lot of fun.

We practiced spinning in the grease today. Wow. What a difference. The practice fleece is quite nice and not very dirty, thank goodness. I've discovered that I have to be less picky: learn to live with some small vegetative matter, and not be so precise. This is going to be a race, after all. Fast is good, slow is not so good. I have some singles to ply at home so I can practice knitting in the grease. I bet that will be a learning experience!

I even spent some time looking up some links regarding this Challenge. North America's fastest knitter had an interesting first experience. You can read about it here: http://www.spinnersquarterly.com/articles-woolchallenge.html

And if you're interested of putting together your own team, you can find the rules and pattern here:
http://www.paulbunyan.net/users/bsellon/intlchallenge.html

I'd love to know if any of you are thinking of joining in this challenge. You are welcome to come cheer us on in June (date not set as yet) at Noah's Place Farm in Clarence. Hint: there is a shop with fibre and yarn and goat soap and ....