First off, Happy Birthday Nanny Ashby! (my one remaining grandparent), 99 today! Also happy Bastille Day.

On my travels out and about today I spent some fun time at Fibre East. I had a lovely look round at everything and had a go on a Spinolution Bee, and a great wheel! I was not too bad on the Bee, and pretty rubbish with the great wheel, but it was good fun and has spurred me on to have a proper go at longdraw on my wheel. The best bit of the day was all the lovely people. It was so nice to catch up with people I haven’t seen in a while and meet new people too (hello Margaret!), and also to put faces to names I have been chatting with or buying things from on the internet.

The weather was a bit squelchy and there was a bit too much mud for me, I am a big wimp! But luckily it wasn’t torrential rain during the day and it actually stopped raining and warmed up by the time I headed home. Thank you for the tips Anna on driving in the mud, I got out of the car park with no problems. My shoes are drying out in the porch, although I was impressed that my feet stayed dry, and my trousers are in the wash as I write. I hope the stand holders didn’t get their stock too muddy, there were some very wet bits of the marquees.

We have been catching up with the cyclists this evening, but are still only part way through today’s coverage. I have finished spinning the singles of merino / silk. Tomorrow I shall ply it.

Today’s coin is a 50p. Well done to David Miller for yesterday’s win.

Today was the longest stage for the cyclists, with some stunning scenery. We have only managed to watch half of it so far, hopefully we will catch up tomorrow.

I’m afraid the spinning is a bit samey, another single of teal merino / silk. This is nice to spin, and it has been nice spinning some 100g amounts for the instant gratification after the 1kg of alpaca  / merino!

Today’s coin is a £2. Yesterday’s single is in the background.

Another exciting day of cycling in the mountains, and another great win for the French and Europcar.

I have started spinning some merino / silk in teal from Wingham. I’m not sure whether this is the end of a run, but the silk doens’t seem to be as well blended as it has been with other colours of this blend that I have spun before. Hopefully it will just make for an interesting tweedy look in the finished yarn.

Today’s coin is a £1. I have run out of interesting French coins (sorry Pierre Rolland – today’s winner), so thought I would use a British coin to celebrate that Bradley is still in yellow and that Chris has I think moved up a place in the General Classification.

On a tip from the Knitty blog I have been experimenting with using Tyvek wristbands (the kind they use at festivals) as yarn labels. The big advantage over paper is that they are washable, so I have been investigating writing on them with my permanent markers to see which ones run when washed.

Interestingly the red, and the thick black pens have run a bit, but the others seem fine, and none of them seem to have changed colour. I am interested to see whether you could use these labels when dyeing skeins, or whether the wristband would take up the dye and would obscure the writing. I must have another dyeing session soon and find out.

Back after a bit of catching up yesterday. We seem to have had all the weather today! It has been sunny with blue sky, then a bit of drizzle, then torrential rain, thunder, lightning, enormous hail, and then back to sunny again. They are now issueing a flood alert for our local river, but luckily the closest it comes to us is about three miles away. I am a bit worried about my sister’s back garden of their house in the UK, though the house will be fine because it is at the top of a hill (the garden slopes down the hill to a mill leat which flows into our local river).

In among the exciting weather it has also been spinning group today, and I luckily managed to dodge the rain getting the wheel in and out of the car. It was lovely to catch up with everyone and admire their lovely spinning, knitting, and weaving.

We watched today’s stage of the cycling this evening, and what an exciting race! It seemed a very hard fought battle to the finish line but well done Thomas Voeckler! There were times when he seemed to be trying to win France a medal in face pulling but it obviously did the trick! I’m sure your cheering him on Avril made all the difference 🙂

I did do some spinning today too, I finished the rainbow merino singles at spinning group:

The coin here is a £2, to celebrate Bradley and Chris’s amazing time trial on Monday.

Then this evening I plied it:

This is a 3ply, and I think is destined for socks, though I haven’t measured it yet. This is a French 10 Cent for Thomas Voeckler’s win today.

The colour reminds me of purple heather plants, like the North York Moors in summer. I am very pleased with the way it has come out. I was a bit worried that the colours would all mix together and turn to mud, but I think the end result is ok 🙂

This evening was spinning guild annual Show and Tell so we are only half way through watching today’s cycling, and will catch up while they are having a rest day tomorrow. The Show and Tell was great fun, with loads of inspiring and varied things to look at. I’m afraid I was so busy looking and feeling and asking questions that I completely failed to take any photos.

I have done a bit of spinning today though, this is my start on some rainbow merino from Wingham, bought at their sampling day earlier in the year.

Today’s coin is a Guernsey 50p, which has no relevance to the racing whatsoever 🙂

Wow! That was an exciting day’s racing! We didn’t quite feel the need to hang out of the window and shout for our rider to keep going in the way that the directeur sportif of FDJ did, but we were on the edge of our seats, and I think some of my spinning may be a bit wonky 🙂

Today I plied up the merino / seacell from yesterday. I love how this has come out, and hopefully it will make some nice socks, although I haven’t yet measured how many metres I have. It was lovely stuff to spin though I did have a couple of little lumps of seacell, and the plying has a couple of rather dodgy joins where the racing was a bit too exciting. Hopefully these wont be too noticeable in the finished knitting.

Today’s coin is a French 20 Cent to celebrate Thibaut Pinot’s win today.

First day in the mountains for the cyclists, and after a hard day in front of the telly (its a hard job but someone’s got to do it!) we have finally caught up.

A couple of very exciting stages to watch, and I managed to get quite a bit of spinning done. This is the last of the alpaca / merino, this skein is chain plied.

I have given it a wash, and once it has all dried I shall weigh and measure it. I am really looking forward to knitting with it!

I’m afraid I don’t have any Slovakian coins to celebrate Peter Sagan’s win yesterday, so this is a Japanese 100 Yen coin, because it is pretty 🙂

While we watched today’s race I have been spinning some Coast, 75% superwash merino, 25% seacell from Picperfic. I surprised myself by finishing the 100g today.

This is the first time I have spun seacell, it felt a bit like the merino silk blends, but perhaps not quite so static. I am looking forward to plying it tomorrow.

The coin here is a British 50p to celebrate Chris Froome winning the stage and the polka dot jersey, and Bradley Wiggins taking the yellow jersey. A good day for Team Sky!

Just a small skein of plied alpaca / merino today. This is the last of the proper 3ply. Tomorrow I will chain ply the left overs.

Today’s coin is a German 2 Euro, to celebrate André Greipel winning the stage again yesterday (we are still a day behind the cyclists).

The weather has cheered right up today. It has been warm, but not as humid as yesterday and we have had the first day without rain in what feels like yonks! I grabbed the opportunity to dash outside and catch up with some much needed things in the garden. I am still losing the battle with the foliage generally, but at least I don’t need a machete to open the back door now 🙂

We are inching our way along catching up with the cyclists. We finished watching yesterday’s racing, and were very relieved when we started watching today’s coverage that no-one had been too badly hurt in the crash near the end. Hopefully we shall catch up with real time at the weekend.

While watching I have plied up another skein of alpaca / merino.

Today’s coin is a German 5 Cent, to celebrate André Greipel’s win yesterday.

I think I probably have one or maybe two more skein’s of plying left to go. I was so worried about over-plying this, that I think I have gone the other way and slightly under-plied it. Hopefully it will be ok anyway. I am really looking forward to starting to knit with it.