Tour de Fleece 2013 #3

So the Tour de France is about halfway done, which means the Tour de Fleece is about halfway done as well.  This post means that I am now halfway done my Tour de Fleece goals (which were meagre, but that's not the point), so I am on pace to finish on time!

To recap, my goal was to post 6 times during the Tour, and to spin at least two braids of fibre.  This is post #3, so that part of the goal is on track.

As for the other part, I have successfully turned this:

Into this.

It seems to be around 450 m of fingering weight, which is far more yardage than I've managed to get out of anything so far.  This was the braid of sweet georgia merino + silk.  So lovely to spin, and I'm really happy with the finished product.  And I'm halfway done this part of the goal too!

Next up is more sweet georgia, this time a 4 oz braid of bfl (blue-faced leicester) fibre.  This is the one that I got in October in last year's fibre of the month club.  The colourway is called Autumn Leaves, which looks about right.

I know it's not fall or anything, but if I spin this up now, then theoretically I could knit something out of it for fall, right?  I'm thinking mittens, perhaps fingerless.  The colours are quite stunning, together and on their own, but I don't think I want to just spin this one willy nilly. I think I'm going to try to do this one self-striping, with fairly long solid colour blocks, as that is something I haven't tried doing before.

The easiest way to do the striping would probably be to fractal spin it, but I'm not sure if I want to fractal spin this one.  I think it might look best if the two plies match colours all the way through, but I'm not totally sure.  I'm going to split the whole thing lengthwise down the middle and start on one of the halves, so there is still time for me to contemplate.

If you think I should fractal spin this, let me know!  Don't let me make the wrong decision!  If I bugger up the spinning of this, it will all be your fault.  YOUR fault.  Not mine.

Whew, pressure's off, time to start spinning.