Finally cott-on

Alright, so as plays-on-words go, this one might not be the best. But I tried, okay?

It's time for the Tour de Fleece again, and this time I'm sorta participating. In a nutshell, the Tour de Fleece is a challenge given to spinners all over the place to spin some yarn every day that the Tour de France happens. They spin bicycle wheels, we spin spinning wheels.
You can join a "team" or start your own with friends. In the "teams" you can chat with others people and show off your progress photos. And of course get motivated to actually spin the whole month that the Tour de France goes on.

I'm part of the Rookie team, not that I've talked much to people or even posted a single picture, and a Ravelry friend of mine started an impromptu Slacker team that I've joined with her. So far I'm less of a Slacker then I thought I would be. I spun  a whole 10 minutes on the 29th (the start of the Tour) a whole 10 minutes on the 30th, and a whopping 30 minutes on the 1st. I.Was.On.FIRE! After that my spinning was interrupted by camping vacations, by school obligations, and by general laziness.

The personal challenges I set for myself were 1) spin cotton, 2) try core-spinning. I started working on the cotton first and after failing miserably at my wheel, I tried it on one of the spindles (after running to the Slacker group and asking for advice and getting a link to some instructions of course). And I'm happy to say that it actually works. 

I also spun up two core-spun yarns, and they turned out pretty nicely. One of my Ravelry friends was amazing enough to send me some over-twisted core yarn and a small batt to play with. I loved the colors of the bat and was kind of disappointed when the core-spun yarn didn't turn out quite that pretty. But after I realized that I could pull the batt apart into two color sections I liked the colors quite a bit more.

The second core-spun yarn is the Norwegian wool that Mom dyed for me, flecked with some blue felting wool. They are little packets of wool that Michaels sells for felting projects, but they worked great as accept colors. I even threw some beads onto the core thread and incorporated them into the yarn.

I even finished a spinning WIP and am plying it right now. I'd like to think that I was rather productive during this tour. I've learned some new techniques, I've seen some amazing yarns, and I've met some new friends. And hopefully next year's Tour will be just as productive for me.