Tour de Fleece...the fiber hunt begins

I've never done it before but I'm about to start now. Take your mind out of the gutter and go hunt down some great fiber....it's time to SPIN !!!

Spinning is so new to me I'm lucky I know what fiber is. I'm still learning that different sheep have extremely different kinds of fleece, different lengths, some better than others for specific end products. And all this time I thought wool was wool. It's so not.
I'm now in love with Alpaca. Aside from a stunning little cria (baby-another new thing for me) named Serious from Moonwood Farm, I never gave the fiber a thought before. I was given a beautiful poncho made by women in Peru and never gave the fiber & how it was made a thought. Now I go look at it in wonder and appreciate the gift even more than I did before. I've learned that there is stuff called Angelina that makes stuff sparkle in a nice way, but I admit that I still don't know what it is. I'm learning about things like milk fiber,and the latest, white bamboo top. The bamboo top was a sample gift from Silver Sun Alpacas, and when I first touched it I thought "this must be what angel wings are made of, or what clouds must feel like". I keep it next to me & it makes me smile when I look at it. I love bamboo. I planted several varieties all over my property when I first moved here to act as a buffer on one side-nobody was going to come walking across the property thinking it was a little forest-not when my babies were in the yard. I liked that it stayed green in the winter & waved in the wind, and made snow even more beautiful. Now I find it's being used as a fiber. I can't cut one of these things down without a buzz saw so I found that interesting. I figured, hey, if you just have to chop it down & throw it in a pot, I could make it. Wouldn't you know, someone on Ravelry actually knew all the intricacies that went into making bamboo into usable fiber. Needless to say, I won't be making it, but when I'm a better spinner, I will be buying it.
So now I'm about to begin my first Tour de Fleece. I'm seeing people showing stunning fibers & saying things like I'll be spinning 48,629 yards of lace yarn, or I've got 6 sheep sheered just for this occasion and I'm spinning all of it. I'm feeling good that I'm not knocked out by what they can do. My goal is to spin as much as I can evenly. That's a huge goal for me & I'm happy with it. I may never get to plying any of what I spin, but hopefully, I'll have a nice little mound of evenly spun fiber. Then I'm going to decide what I'm going to be able to make with it. In the meantime, I'm going to rest up, maybe knit on some socks that have been waiting for me for awhile, and play with all the fiber I'll soon be spinning. Evenly. Then I'm going back to ---

“There’s an on switch on the printer, is there? There’s always something you haven’t done.”

“Tea and cake or death!”
“You said death first, death first!”

“I like my women like I like my coffee….covered in bees.”

Gotta love Eddie-even in the middle of the Tour de Fleece! Good luck to everyone on the Tour!