A for Airplane!  And Airport!  And hopefully not Airsick.  Adam (oooh another A!) are at Tampa International Airport waiting for our plane to Philadelphia.  So excited!  Keep your fingers crossed for good weather and no turbulence.

I was reminded today that I forgot to post my news – I’m officially going to Nursing school!  I start in January 2009 and will be finshed in May 2010.  I’m so so so glad to finally hear back, it’s a huge weight off my shoulders.  I was pretty sure I’d get in, but until I heard for sure I didn’t want to count on anything.  But I’m in

The 2008 Tour de France/Fleece is over, and I made it to the finish line!  In honor of the occasion, I wrote a (bad) limerick for the TdF ravelry group:

A medic who knits joined the tour
For a spinning slump this was the cure
Like lightning she spun
And had lots of fun
And proved that she could endure!

Cheesyness aside, I think I earned my yellow jersey.  All accomplishments and goals aside, my overall reason for joining the tour was to re-ignite my spinning mojo and I’ve definitely done that.  I added everything up today, and I spun a total of 16.5 ounces of fiber – that’s more in three weeks than I had spun TOTAL up until that point.  Not too shabby!

And after three weeks of straight spinning… I pulled out the Bella Donna BFL I got this week and spun up the first ounce before dinner.  I’m hooked!  I need to start knitting again soon though, because the Ravelympics start on 8/8/08 (Happy Birthday Grandma!) and I have a crazy goal.  More on that next post.

My order from Flawful Fibers came today – 7.1oz of Merino/Tencel (that match the sample I spun last week) and 4oz of BFL in the Bella Donna colorway (purples and blues).  I met the owner on Plurk during the Tour de Fleece, and her stuff is amazing!  This is my first order, but there will be many more.  She has lots of different fibers and great colors and I received my order in four days!  Check it out:

Several people participating in the TdF are spindle spinning, and I’m in awe of what they’re doing!  I have a 1.5oz drop spindle that I never really got into, because I got my wheel soon after and I can spin so much faster and more efficiently on the wheel.  I’ve been interested in getting a supported laceweight spindle to try spinning cotton and fine silk, and today I picked up a 0.65 oz tigerwood spindle at my LYS and 2oz of cotton/silk fiber.  It’s not exactly a supported spindle (although I could probably use it that way), but its much lighter than the one I have and it will be a great way to finish the TdF (especially since I’m working this weekend and won’t be able to spend much time at the wheel).  I can’t decide if I’m brave enough to bring it to work though – they’re overwhelmed by knitting, who knows what they would think of spinning?

Today (well, yesterday/Wednesday) was Challenge Day for the Tour de Fleece, which coincided with the L’Alpe-d’Huez stage of the Tour de France. A surprising (but happy) byproduct of the Tour de Fleece is that I’m really getting into the cycling version of the Tour as well, and I’m getting motivated to get out there on my own bike.

So in honor of the Challenge Day, I challenged myself to finish spinning about 3.5oz of hand-dyed bamboo top (I got impatient and spun the first ounce on Monday night). Not only did I spin it all, I plyed it too! (Plyed? Plied? Whatever.)

A while ago I mentioned knitting – there hasn’t been much, but I’m still working slowly away on the Apres Surf Hoodie. I finished the back and I’m about halfway done with the front.

I’m still spinning away at the Tour de Fleece! This week I received a gorgeous sample of merino/tencel from Flawful Fibers and spun it up into 70 yds of 2-ply (about 13 WPI).

I ordered another 7.1oz today when the new combed top/braids went on sale, which should give me about 500 yds all together. It’s lovely and shiny and drapey, and I think it would make a beautiful mini-clapotis or something like that.

The last two days I spun some merino that I plan to use for colorwork socks. I had 1.8oz and got 170 yds of 2-ply. It was nice to spin just a couple ounces of one color at once – I was finished before I got bored! I have lots of smaller colorwork projects in my ravelry queue (mittens, etc) so I want to try to spin the yarn for most of those instead of ordering online.

I’m spinning the blue merino to go with it tonight.

It seems my goals for the TdF have changed – I realized that realistically, I’m just not going to spin every day. However, on the days do spin (all my days off, right now) I have been spinning for 2-4-6 hours a night. I realized while I was writing about all my projects that I have been spinning all kinds of different fibers in many different ways. I’ve drastically improved my navajo/chain plying, I taught myself to andean ply, and I’ve learned a lot about my wheel. I’ve spun with merino/silk, tencel, BFL, and this week I’ll try bamboo all for the first time. My new goal for the Tour is to try as many new things as I can. Wednesday is supposed to be the day we give ourselves a big challenge (because it’s the hardest day of the bike version of the Tour) so I think I’m going to pick up a few ounces of tussah silk and try it on the hand spindle. I’m really proud that I’ve stuck with it and gotten so much done!

In non-spinning news (feel free to wander away if you’re just here for the fibery goodness), these last few weeks have been really rough. Don’t want to get into too many details, but almost every day there has been some new issue or crisis that has come up, and it’s really wearing me down. I don’t want to be depressing, but I could use some happy mojo right about now. Adam and I are going to Philly/NJ next week and taking a day trip to NYC, which will be a great chance to get away and relax. No word from nursing school yet, but I found out that I’m exempted from more classes than I thought thanks to my Bachelor’s degree (yay!). AND nothing is official yet, but I’m hoping to have some exciting work news to share in the next couple weeks…so think lovely thoughts (anyone know the movie reference? Mom? We watched it about a milion times!) and hopefully I’ll have some good news soon!