Monday, July 09, 2007

Selecting the spinning for Tour de Fleece

...and it's a big decision!

I have been trying to organize my projects and make lists of what I hope to accomplish this summer. I'm about to make a startling disclosure: I have 12 quilt tops, 20 knitting projects and uncounted spinning projects in the works! Several of these are near completion, but my restlessness with the middle stages of a creative effort can not be appeased. About the time I get one third to one half way finished with something, I become disinterested and find either a new obsession or resort to another partially completed effort. I figure if I can channel my energies to the latter, I will be fine eventually. But this constant obsession with brand new projects must stop...yeah.

And that's why I'm planning to spin one pound of California red fleece this month for the Tour de Fleece. Here are the reasons for my choice:
1. It is washed so I can almost consider it an ongoing project
2. I have never spun this variety of fleece before and new is fun
3. It looks like it will process nicely and spin even more nicely into a springy yarn
4. It is manageable in the amount of time I have remaining as I am starting a couple of days late


So that's it, then. I have an appointment with my roving carder first thing tomorrow morning.

I am noticing something interesting about all of the organizing and listmaking I've been doing. Spinning seems to be exempt from it all. I wonder why that is? There seems to be no need to prioritize and itemize tasks remaining. I seem to always get back to spinning projects even without an end product in sight. My inclination is to say that my obsession is still running high with spinning; so high that nothing seems like a chore (slight exaggeration only - I don't love picking VM from some fleeces) from washing to fluffing to carding to spinning singles, dying, plying, washing again and skeining. The rewards inherent in adding lovely finished skeins to the already overflowing basket are enough to keep me creating. I wonder when I will be ready to part with any of it. Currently, I'm very attached to all of it!

Tomorrow I'll post pictures of the range of the coopworth yarns from the fleece I finished, the entire- if tiny -Jacob fleece I spun, and the first completed quilt top of the summer.