#chiengora

#TourDeFleece Stage 11 Plied up the singles of 2:1 TM/Espresso merino yarn that I split up yesterday. Oddly, despite precise yardage measurements, and each cone holding 21g of yarn, the blue one ran out considerably earlier than the other two! 😭 My only explanation is that I wound from the EEW 6.1 with slight tension on the bobbin to keep it under control on to the blue cone, but then transferred 105 yd each from the blue cone on my Lazy Kate to the other cones, and perhaps the difference in resistance impacted overall stretch, which therefor translated into different length calculations. No biggie, though! I just tied in a marker where the 3-ply ended and continued with 2-ply for the other two, which were much more closely matched in length. After that I repeated the cone-winding process with the 3:1 TM/Espresso singles. Interestingly, while both were spun from 60 g fiber total, the 2:1 measured 319 yd, while the 3:1 came out at 265 yd. #TourDeFleece2026 #Chiengora

Time to catch up on #TourDeFleece posts! Stage #12 (last Thursday) This day I finished up my Tibetan Mastiff / merino blend experiments. First I plied up the 3:1 TM/Espresso, which was a MUCH better success, yarn-chicken-wise, than the 2:1 blend. See photo! Then I split the 2:1 TM/Dark Chocolate (lighter brown) onto 3 cones, which went fine, and then plied them, which did NOT go fine! Perhaps I should have stopped when I was ahead, but I felt determined to finish before bed and started making mistakes. First one of the singles broke. No problem! I'll just splice in the free end and keep going. But while doing that the other two singles got horrible tangled. I fought the tangles for a bit, but eventually just cut out that whole section, tied a knot, and kept going. This one also ended with a 2-ply section when one of the singles ran out well before the others. And in the end, you STILL can't really tell the Espresso vs. Dark Chocolate blends! (Both 2:1 blends are shown here.) #TourDeFleece2026 #Chiengora

#TourDeFleece Rest Day # 2 No spinning, but I did transfer my Tibetan Mastiff / merino blends to skein/hank format for better side-by-side comparison. Making up for my unofficial rest day last Friday.

In these photos, top to bottom:

• 2:1 TM/Dark Chocolate (purple ties) 3-ply -2:1 TM/Espresso (orange ties) 3-ply large & 2-ply small
• 3:1 TM/Espresso (yellow ties) 3-ply

I'd already done a 1:1 TM/Espresso blend, and found that it really didn't have the fuzzy halo you get from 100% fur yarn: it was just a brown yarn. So, the bottom 2 blends are to see if I can get more of that halo back with a smaller fraction of wool, while still keeping the benefits of wool's "memory". The fur is much harder to come by, so the more wool I can get away with, the longer I can make the fur last.

The 3:1 does indeed look fuzzier than the 2:1, so I'm quite curious now how it'll compare after wash, thwack/snap, and swatch.

The Dark Chocolate is a slightly redder brown merino from a different sheep from the same flock. It's still subtle, but you can see the difference from the Espresso a little more here than on the bobbins. It brings out the redder tones in the fur, whereas the Espresso is a better match for the dark browns in the fur.

#TourDeFleece2026 #HandSpinning #Chiengora

Starting on #TourDeFleece Stage #1 I finished off 2.5 oz of 50:50 Husky:wool blend on the e-spinner. This is 390yd of ~30-40 wpi singles which I plan to ply 2:1 with 100% husky yarn, spun on my Turkish spindle, trying to work up to 20 wpi. My goal is to pair this with my ~20 wpi heather gray 100% Rio husk yarn in a double-knit pattern. Also spent time preparing and organizing a month's worth of spinning to come! I have plenty of projects to keep me busy. #TDF2026 #Chiengora

#TourDeFleece Stage #3 Added twist to my husky/wool blend 3-ply, and I'm quite a bit happier now. It's a much better match to the Rio heather gray. After a short rest I'll give it a bath with blueing shampoo to see how much whiter I can get it. After that I started spinning singles of 2:1 Tibetan Mastiff/merino blend. This is a project on pause since last winter (fall?), where I started with 50:50 TM/merino blend (the cake and swatch in the 2d photo). My goal is to find a blend that benefits from the structural properties of wool with the fuzzy character of #chiengora. The 1:1 seemed to lose its doggy character, so I'm testing 2:1 and 3:1. So far 2:1 is still spinning nicely! The wool grabs onto the slippery fur, allowing a not-quite-long-draw drafting motion. It wants to be thin, but I've been working to keep it a tad thicker to give it some more loft, squish and body. And yet, I only got through about 1/3 of the 60g prepared tonight. #TourDeFleece2026