Inkle loom suggests a name; Tour de Fleece Day 3; and another flashback

Latest weavy discovery: My inkle loom is great for stashbusting. It takes so little yarn to make an inkle strip, and so little time to warp the inkle, and so little time to finish a strip, that my secret, till-now-unspoken goal to make an inkle strip a day for the duration of the Tour de Fleece looks almost too easy. (I'm sure it won't be, since something is bound to come up and hurt my productivity, but theoretically, I could double that goal and still make it.)

I may have to dub my inkle loom Stashbuster. Or something like that. ;)

Because seriously. Look what Inkle Love helped me make yesterday and today:


Two inkle strips I made on Day 2 and Day 3 of the Tour de Fleece. Both are made from dishcloth cotton. The blue one is something like plain weave, while the pink one is warp-faced, like inkle bands are "supposed" to be.
Interestingly enough, a look back at last year's Day 2 and Day 3 TDF progress shows that I was weaving on a new-to-me-but-not-actually-new loom (my 4-inch Weavette) last year, too.

Weird.

Anyway, I finished spinning the Merino/Tussah leftovers today, and plied them:


Which brings me to...

Tour de Fleece 2010 Stats — UPDATED July 6, 12:22 a.m.

• Yards spun, total: 264 yards singles-only, or 396 542 yards of singles + plying yardage
• Ounces spun, total: 0.6 ounces
• Skeins spun, total: 2 (2-ply hand-dyed Merino/Tussah in Oceany, 132 yds; 2-ply flame-colored Shetland, 146 yds)

TDF 2010 spinning records:

• Most singles spun in one day: 0.2 ounces
• Highest combined yardage (spun singles + plying) for one day: 200+ 346+ yards
• Highest yardage plied (2-ply) in one day: 278 yards
• Most skeins finished in one day: 2
• Fastest rate-of-ply (2-ply): 6.64 yds per minute (398.4 yds per hour)

If I spin some more tonight, I'll have to update that, of course, and I'm probably going to confuse myself soon, but that's okay. I'm trying. ;) — NOTE: I did indeed spin some more, so the stats are indeed now updated. :D

Spinning and cycling, Chinese eyes, and my first inkle-woven band

The Tour de France, and thus the Tour de Fleece, starts tomorrow. Some of the fiber I'm going to try to spin in the next three weeks of mad yarn-making:








...and somewhere in there, I'm going to try to spin a mile of yarn in one day. Ha, ha, ha...

In other news, I got off my butt, warped the inkle loom, and made my first inkle band. I didn't even look up any directions until I needed to advance the warp, when I needed to move the knots at the ends of the warp. (I'd originally tied the ends of the warp to the loom, but they need to be re-tied to the band itself after warping, so the warp can advance.)

I swear it took me less time to finish weaving this band than it took me to figure out how to weave my first Weavette square ... which is pretty crazy. Especially considering I basically warped the loom for it twice. I'd love to be able to use the warping method in this YouTube video, but the heddle peg on my loom is closed on both ends, so I can't attach the heddles as I warp, like the video shows. I ended up using the loom as a warping board first, then wound a little ball with the free end of the warp yarn, then I re-warped and put the ball of yarn through a pre-tied heddle as I made every other warp. If you have no clue what I'm talking about, and the video doesn't help, well, maybe I'll just have to make my own? ;D

Anyway, this is what I made:


Inkle-woven headband on my head, and as a bonus, you get to look at my suspicious Chinese eyes! ;)
Yessss ... I foresee more inkle weaving in my future. (But after the Tour de Fleece? Or during?)