More Random Bursts of Creativity

Formerly @brarb-does-stuff/@thelibrarbian, now a main blog instead of a sideblog. Mostly fiber arts, sometimes other stuff and things.

[yarnycrisis]

Day 9 - 10 minutes of spinning today.

Day 10 - 50 minutes and I am through the main pinks! 🎉💕 There are a few splotches of pink here and there, but now I'm into the lighter oranges.

🩷✅️

[definitelynotanarchfey]

Tour de Fleece Day 18 & 19 (2026)

I had pushed my rest day to Tuesday and I'm glad I did, cause I really needed rest. As such, you´re getting some stats now instead of yesterday!

All in all, I spun and plyed 640g of wool in the last week, and washed 536g. I lost interest in tracking all the details, since my math went wrong somewhere (shows how well I know basic addition), but I finished the last of the Manx today, so the secondary goal for Tour de Fleece is now all done!

Next up is more destashing by spinning more of the Eider and I have to make the next single for the wedding gift yarn, so that that can be finished in time. Do enjoy these photos I took but am not motivated enough to sort through!

[disgruntled-lifeform]

How I'm occupying myself while I wait for my partner and the Little Lad

This the Rambouillet Riverbank fractal spin that I committed spindle abuse for; it will get plied on itself and turned into hats for my stepmother's brats

[disgruntled-lifeform]

Kep and Papa Poe

[knits-and-crafts]

Tour de Fleece update! We're just starting week 3, but I personally missed a week and a half due to vacation plans so I'm only about 2oz down of my project so far. I'll tack on the extra 10 days at the end to even it out.

After a very minimal amount of sampling I decided to spin a 3-ply yarn, with one ply being the sparkle fiber, one ply being solid orange, and one being a rough blend of the pink and yellow. I'm a little frustrated with the sparkle fiber though because there are a lot of white/ undyed pieces I have been pulling out as I go, so we'll have to see what the final yardage ends up as. And as usually I'm loving seeing everyone's projects this year! Now back to spinning!

[leiyahime]

TdF Update (Lost count of days)

No, I have not been lazy since te last update.

I've been spinning away on all projects I introduced at the last post. Each day on every project. I have one bobbin of ~85g of the Blue and a second one of ~60g and 5 1/2 batts still to go for the first half of the fibre

Of the blue-to-light green gradiant I have finished 3 batts (so half the fibre)

And two spindles of the silk are done.

Tomorrow at the spinning group meetup I plan to ply at least the first skein of Blue

[darksunradiance]

Finished spinning this gorgeous "seaweed" yarn (60% seacell, 40% wool) and oh my god it's soooo smooth and silky and luxurious I can't wait to make something with it because it will feel amazing against my skin !!! I'm so happy with how it turned out it's a pretty fine weight yarn and I feel like it's very consistent and not over/underspun, my skill level is finally getting somewhere I'm proud of 🎉 been working on this one for a while, but now that it's off my wheel I get to start my other tdf spins hooray ~

[zooarchaeologyatdinner]

Tour de Fleece day 15!

And with this I finish 300g this tdf, which was my goal. Time to go put a 100g braid into the shopping cart. Holding off on the purchase til the end of TdF in the hopes I make my second goal and hit 600g by the end of the women's tour.

Next up is 100g of suri alpaca, if I finish that then there's some camel and then it gets sillier from there.

[ofchaosgoddess]

TdF Day 16

many colors spun thicc

also did coffee/muffin/spindling out and about which was very nice. I made it to 9 whole grams on the supported spindle (total, over all of tdf thus far 😂) but I’m spinning potentially a 3ply laceweight? maaaaybe a light fingering so this will in fact take Forever but I will enjoy every moment of that forever.

[hekkil-hehekkil]

let's jump into one of my favorite theme, the bird maidens colored pencils, red posca marker

[movahkiin]

TdF day 9

Ply day done! Tomorrow I need to decide what to spin next.

Bonus progress on my personal TdF bingo card

[thread-goblin]

TDF day ??? (It's July 21)

I've been spinning away at this For the Whimsy spin. It's only 10 grams but at the size I'm spinning it takes a while lol. I'm also taking a lot of rest and stretch breaks to appease the body. Hoping to have this done before Friday so I can wind off in time to return it to my guild friend.

I also finished my larger 1/2 oz spin from the same braid and wowee the pre- and post-wash numbers! We went from a sport weight (15-16 wpi) to worsted (11 wpi) and shrunk in length from 42 to 35.7 yds. That's 14% shrinkage. Targhee is wild. I'm really curious how these traits will affect the tiny spin!

[thedosianexplorer]

Tour de Fleece 2026

Life has been kicking my ass the last couple of months but I am finding time to spin, here and there. This is the Northern Lights colorway in Heathered BFL from Greenwood Fiberworks.

Absolute dream to spin and I'll be getting some more in this colorway as soon as I can. Light laceweight, ~250yds so far between this and the other 2ply skein I've just finished.

[bronzeagecrafts]

Finished another thing! Left is Frau Wöllfchen „Dancing Alone“ alpaca/silk, right is Regenbogenwolle „Bittersweet“ merino/alpaca/camel/silk blend. Think these together could make a really cute cropped striped cardigan??

[amymon-arachne]

TDF Day— okay, doesn’t technically count because it’s a rest day.

Finished a project! It barely fits on this bobbin!

Thank god I decided not to ply this on the treadle wheel. That would have taken forever.

I guess I spun the white thinner than the coloured single, since I have a lot left over:

Which makes sense because the dyed wool was fairly compacted and the white is Ashford Corriedale which spins like a dream.

This means I can add $10 to my budget for Saturday’s fibre festival! Normally I don’t count a project as done until it’s wet finished and measured, but for the purposes of TDF I’m counting it as finished once it’s plied.

[ezekiellsplayground]

Last step of processing the swedish helsinge lamb is carding the thel (inner coat) into fluffy rolags. I’m using my extra large hand carders made by Celestial Farms.

[hateful-theresa]

Damn, that fleece sure is touring

[freckledfiber]

Tour de Fleece has been going well this year. I'm happy to not be on an organized team but rather engaging and sharing with the groups I frequent the most and loosely following the Tour.

Here are some yarns I've been working on since the beginning of the month! Some are long-term projects that are finally coming to fruition, and some are new. I'm really pleased with my progress in making yarn, learning new techniques, and hybridizing techniques to work better for my spinning style.

As an aside, I want to say that I'm incredibly disappointed with the main TdF group that's still hosted on Ravelry and their choice to use genAI banners and welcome images throughout the team threads. Visiting the group and seeing that really solidified my choice to participate elsewhere.