July 6, 2010

Tour de Fff?!

Upon logging into my flickr account lately, I've noticed a few of my contacts have new pictures uploaded with "TDF" on them.  I kept wondering, what the heck is this TDF, anyway?  They were all pictures of spinning yarn... so I looked it up.
Turns out, it stands for Tour de Fleece!  Yes, it's the 5th annual one, too!  And yes, it coincides with the Tour de France!


Now how could a fiber geek like me not know about this online spin-along for people who spin yarn and play with fiber?!  It's grown from 16 spinners in '06 to over 1500 last year.  It's up to about 2500 this year!  Needless to say, I'm a little late to the game this year, but perhaps next??? 

Here's the Guidelines (NOT RULES):

1. Spin every day the Tour rides, if possible. Saturday July 4th through Sunday July 25th. Days of rest: Monday July 12th, Wednesday July 21st. (Just like the actual tour)

2. Spin something challenging Thursday July 22nd. (The Tour’s toughest mountain stage from Pau up the legendary Col du Tourmalet)

3. Take a button if you want one. Then we can use the button on our blogs in show of solidarity. Take it from here or grab a clean one from the flickr pool.

4. Wear yellow on Sunday July 25th to announce victory. Why not wear yellow on any day you feel particularly successful? (Yellow is the color of the race leader in the Tour - but here we are all ‘race leaders’)

5. Other colors if desired: Green (sprinter - think FAST), Polka-dot (climber - as in uphill), and white (rookie)

Check out Keep on Knitting in the Free World for all the details! 

I think I will try and spin along as much as I can, this year though!  Last night I spent some time in the studio and spun while it rained outside and I also played on my drum carder.  I still feel a little intimidated by it sometimes, but with inspiration from hatdiva-atomic blue lately, I really had to try again!!  She's got almost the same old drum carder as I do- in fact I call them cousins!  She makes gorgeous batts and yarns too.

Here's a couple of batts from last night:
 And also the yarn I spun.  It's wool/mohair from Nova Scotia:

2 comments:

cal said...

i am always late finding out about these things too! i wouldn't have even known the Tour de France was going on... if either of us hears about it earlier next year, let's notify each other ;n)

Ashley said...

sounds good Cal!!!