Fiber folks can be so clever. Twenty years ago, a spinning blogger coined the term Tour de Fleece (TDF) to create a now well-known spin-along.

Tour de Fleece 2026

I have never formally participated in this spin-along. I’m not part of the Ravelry group or any other social media group. I don’t set spinning goals for myself. Truth of the matter is, I didn’t really understand exactly what it was until I read a Reddit thread about it.

Adding even a bit more truth into this blog entry, I didn’t even realize that the TDF started around now. I’ve just had a recent urge to spin and it happens to coincide with the concurrent bicycle race in France. In my mind, the TDF is just a good excuse to spin a lot during the Tour de France (while watching or not) and then blab about it on social media.

Fortunately I’m in a spinning mood lately.

Regardless, it’s still a clever name. I’m sure it also helps a lot of fiber businesses to promote themselves. Which is a good thing in my mind. I also get to reduce my roving stash and add to my yarn stash.

It’s all good with no downsides as far as I can tell.

Current Spinning/Knitting

After spinning up some of the starry midnight merino, I decided to ply it with some multi-colored singles from a different roving.

It came out really well. It’s a bulky yarn and it’s squishy and soft and has an interesting subtlety to it that I like quite a bit. I think for my next TDF task, I will spin up more of the midnight and ply it with some of the teal Romney/mohair fiber.

I also did some additional knitting on the latest helical sock using some of my recent handspun.

I turned the heel and made a little progress on the foot. It’s a bit tight to get on. I’m hoping I can block it out a little more loosely when it’s finished.