Today’s concert went well, fun pieces, and I only played a moderate number of wrong notes. Despite me putting sun cream on it didn’t rain! Barnes fair was very busy, lots of stands and lots of people. I didn’t really have a chance to look at the stands this time, maybe next year.

This evening we caught up with the Tour and I did a marathon of plying.

I like how it is coming out, though am a bit concerned I have underplied some of it. I shall skein and finish it tomorrow.

Today’s coin is a Bremen 2 Euro, unfortunately you wont be seeing it again because after I took this photo I dropped it into the bush and I can’t find it.

It has been another wet day here, though it has perked up a bit this evening.

I have finished the last of the singles of the merino/silk. Here are all three bobbins, waiting for me to start plying tomorrow:

The bobbin on the right is the one I finished today.

I love the scenery of the Loire that they cycled through today. So many lovely places to visit. Their lunch station was just down the road from the campsite where we spent our honeymoon.

The longest stage of the tour today for the cyclists. I haven’t had quite that long to spin today, but we do seem to be having the same filthy weather as they are in France. I am hoping it will cheer up a bit by the weekend as I am playing in an outdoor concert with Barnes Concert Band on Saturday.  If anyone is local and feels like popping along, we will be playing in a marquee at Barnes Fair, on the green near the pond in the centre of Barnes, London, UK. We are playing from 4 til 5.30 but there will be lots of other bits and pieces going on all afternoon, and it’s usually good fun.

I made good progress on my work project during the day, and spun a bit more of my merino/silk while watching the tour this evening. Fortunately I managed to find 5 minutes when it wasn’t raining to take a picture of the progress on bobbin number 3 so far:

Today’s coin is a Gibraltar pound.

I am hopeful that I shall finish this bobbin tomorrow.

It has been rather fun the last couple of days watching them cycle through places I have been to. I am hoping I might recognise a few places when they go down through the Loire region tomorrow too.

Luckily I haven’t been involved in anything like the crashes that the cyclists have experienced today.

I dropped my parents off at Heathrow this morning without a hitch, then came home and put some sealant round our upstairs tap which has been leaking, hopefully I have fixed it. Then made some good inroads into a work project this afternoon and watched the tour and spun this evening.

I’ve made a good start on the third bobbin of merino/silk:

After some fun suggestions on ravelry I shall be trying to use a different coin each day to demonstrate the yarn thickness. So I thought I would kick off with a french 1 Euro coin as it was rather pretty.

An early update today because I shall be busy later. We are recording the rest of the cycling today to catch up on too.

In between catching up with other bits and pieces today I have managed to finish my second bobbin of the merino / silk!

The one I finished today is on the right. And I manged to trim the bush I use as my photo backdrop this morning 🙂

More good progress today as the riders enter Brittany. I am really looking forward to watching the next few days as they ride closer to the area we used to go to for many happy summer holidays as children.

It was spinning group at Ash today, so I made a good start on my second bobbin of merino/silk:

It was lovely to catch up with everyone. Due to being on holiday and other bits and pieces I have missed the last couple of Ash meetings, it was nice to be back.

Another good day of spinning here. It was an exciting and close race among the cyclists, though because of being a team time trial there wasn’t quite so much French scenery as on a normal race day.

I have finished my first bobbin of singles with my merino/silk. So 1/3 done, 2/3 left to go:

I think my progess will be slowing down from now on because my days will be busier with other bits and pieces which need to be done, but it is a good start 🙂

As you have probably gathered it has been a busy few months here! I can’t believe it has been more than 6 months since I last posted. I have been doing a bit of knitting and spinning in amongst everything else, and even taking some photos of it all. It will probably take me a while to sort all the photos out and catch up. I have decided to take part in the Tour de Fleece again this year, spinning along while watching the Tour de France, always good fun, and hopefully a good way to get me back into the blogging.

So, onward!

This year I am spinning yet more merino silk, it is lovely stuff, how can I resist (well it should be fairly clear by now that I can’t resist). This blend is 70% merino, 30% silk, from Wingham Wool Works. I think it is a fabulous colour, but am a little concerned that it wouldn’t be good near my face, so I am going to spin a fine-ish 3ply and make some socks.

Here is the progress before I started spinning today:

And here is the bobbin at the end of today’s spinning:

It is not terribly consistent (the racing got a bit exciting in parts!), but I am enjoying it, and hoping I will improve with practice.