Le Tour de Fleece

ready, steady, spin!

And we're off!

I've just added in the folks who signed up last night -- and no worries, if you turn up tomorrow, I won't turn you away.  As it says in the "rules of engagement" -- if you come late to the party, just set a goal that's appropriate for the time remaining.

A reminder that I have nothing to do with whatever is going on over at Ravelry -- but if you want to participate here and there, well, that sounds good to me.  Whatever you need to meet your goal, which is the point, right?

A note about how you report your progress -- or not.  Again, this is entirely up to you.  If you have a blog and want to report there, fine.  If you're on Ravelry and want to report there, fine.  If you want to leave a note in the comments here, fine.  And if you just want to set your goal and not report, well, that's fine, too.  And there's no timetable -- if you feel you have made progress and want to share, then do so whenever you want to.

It's your challenge, and you get to set it yourself, manage it to suit your needs.  It's also about attitude -- if the goal isn't working a week from now, well, then look at the goal and change it.  Adapt to changing situations, apply a new strategy.

As for me -- many thanks for all the good thoughts about my shoulder.  It's still bothering me, and although my usual operating mode is just to jump in and ignore it, I know from experience that I can't, so there will be very little spinning for me in the next three weeks.  This was bothering me -- how can I set a spinning challenge and then not spin?

And that's when I realized that over the last year, issues of Spin-Off and Wildfibers have ended up all over the house, and I keep having to go search for them when I need something, so there it is, a goal!  I'll spin as much as I can without causing more shoulder problems, and then the rest of the time, I'll gather up the magazines and put them in some order and put them in a magazine box and get them on the bookshelves, where they belong, and where they're easily accessible when I want to consult them.

So there we are -- and now, I'm off to check the Tour de France website, and see if Europe1 has got their podcast feed up again this year!

Best of luck, everyone!

okay, I said "low-key", but I'm not sure I mean't *that* low-key...

First, welcome to everyone who has jumped aboard -- I think I've got everyone's name listed on the main page, but if you don't see it there, or if I've linked incorrectly or something equally dim-witted, pop me a line or leave a comment here and I'll fix it.

Second, as I mentioned in the comment to the previous post:  I'm not affiliated with any groups elsewhere, such as on Ravelry, so be clear that if you want to join the fun (much more high-key, I'd imagine) over there, you need to go and see what they're up to.  That's fine with me -- the idea is just to get people spinning towards some kind of challenge, so wherever, however.  I've just been out here the last four years doing my low-key thing because that's how I am.  You are most welcome to join me;  you are most welcome to join the festivities elsewhere.  It's all cool.

Third, and the most interesting to me, anyway -- it seems that an old shoulder/neck problem has decided to flare up this week, so if it persists, I will be doing *very* little spinning at all.  So my challenge will be to accept that, because I can't change it;  to do what I can; and when I can't spin, to work on knitting up a couple of projects started with my handspun that are languishing, to get them off the plate by the end of July.

As always, you may choose to change your goal mid-stream if you find yourself struggling.  If in a couple of weeks my shoulder is better, I'll likely work on a couple of spinning projects I need to clear out of the way as well -- by I'll be playing it by ear.

Now, where is the team massage therapist when you need one?

testing, testing

Yup, it's that time of year, and time to start thinking about this year's Tour de France, and also about this year's Tour de Fleece.

I'm just popping up briefly to say that I'm looking forward to the start of the Giro this weekend -- I'm working on a secret spinning project, so can't post anything about it, but plan to use the Giro to push this project to a finish.

We'll be updating the blog in the next couple of weeks with information for 2009 -- I'm already thinking of my challenge -- I think I'll be finishing up some spinning projects that have been hanging around a bit, and the knitting projects they correspond with (also stalled because the spinning is).

Oh, there's lots of time before July to change my mind, though...