Tour de Fleece ... begun!

I learned about the Tour de Fleece the same way much of the knitting world did ... from Stepahine Pearl-McPhee. Being in a destashing year (have I any other kinds?) I thought a fiber destash was a good idea. Little did I know HOW destashed my fiber would get from this.

The first thing, obviously, was to contemplate my fibers. And, being the knitterly kind, in a mitteny year, the most reasonable thing in the world was to contemplate my fiber with an eye to making a mitten. Or rather, two mittens. So, I trotted me off to my craft room to consider fiber.

A moth larva carcass got in my way. Or something close enough to one that it makes no difference.

I now have four batches of fiber (one of which I have NO idea where it came from) sitting on my front porch, far far far away from my yarn stash. I only saw one live critter, which was unwinged, and just a smattering of carcasses. But still ... why spin pre-chewed fiber? Especially if the bottom of the boxes and bags looks like someone spilled some yeast in there. That really narrowed down my considerings for the mitten, and I am happy to report my Tour de Fleece goal.

• One pair of Latvian mittens, a combination of two patterns, in chocolate brown (as opposed to chocolate green, of course!), cream, and something in the middle I can't quite describe. Blue-gray? Fawn gray?
  

Progress to date: 50 grams of the first and latter fibers weighed out and sitting next to my spinning wheel, all happily set up downstairs. 40 grams of chocolate was spun today. The cream was lurking in my spun stash.

But now, what to do with the carcass'd fiber? I think I may play with felting it into balls. I've always like those wool balls, but never felt like buying one. Now, I have oodles of fiber (some of it already in ball shapes) that has an excellent reason not to be spun. Not wanting to let a good idea pass, I turned a beige ball of roving with a carcass or two in it into a wool ball today. I think the washer will do a better job ... hand felting leaves deep crevasses in the surface. But I have to more balls, then two batches of batts, and then all sorts of little cream colored locks to play with.

It is fiber destashing ... just not spinning.

When I was not spinning today, I was correcting teh to the, marveling at the ways the colon (punctuation, not body part) has been used and misused throughout the ages, reading Sayers' Strong Poison, doing other normal tasks (including the Killing of the Cucumber Beetles), and pitting another 7 lbs of cherries. That makes 14 lbs from our tree this year that have gone to US and not the birds. Not bad, considering that there are still cherries to ripen, and we don't have a ladder tall enough to pick from the top third to half of the tree. Today's lot turned into a double batch of pie filling and the leftovers are making a second batch of ice cream as I type. (crank twice, type three sentences, repeat)

The scarf is all nicely blocked. Photos will be forthcoming, one of these days. And one of these days, I *really* need to block some mittens and wash some socks. I have a small laundry tub full of such things to do. Originally, I was waiting for warmer weather. It's not March any more, so this may be the week. This has got to be the month, since several of the things will be visiting two fairs in August.