Well, I had some trouble with my spindle wobbling too much probably due to not wrapping it correctly around, so I had to wind off my first yarn onto a toilet roll:

I have no idea how much yarn it is. It’s going to be interesting figuring out how to ply it – I’m nervous about plying. Anyway, my second fresh attempt went much better than the first. I had an argument with the spindle though – it didn’t want to spin even though I knew I was spinning thinner than I did the first time. In a fit of fury, I decided to order from one of the highest touted spindle-makers. This spindle was more than my first spinning kit – but people absolutely RAVE about them. It’s the Tsunami.

However, not content to wait a week or so to spin again, I decided to have another bash. After all, *I* am the human, and *it* was the tool, and I was not going to have any of its backtalk. I *made* the little blighter spin. Once I got some yarn on the thing, it spun much better. This is what I have now:

I am tempted to see how much more I can get on there. It’s getting easier to handle, and I can do much longer lengths of yarn before winding it on to the spindle. I still have not perfected drafting the yarn, but since that seems to take the most practice, I’m taking my steady improvement as a good sign. I still end up with some horribly thin bits when I get overzealous pulling apart the fibers.

I’m nearly done with the blue. I think I’m going to save the red or gray for the new spindle. I’m still not sure how plying works when you have to attach two bits of yarn which are destined to be the same ply. So, if I ply blue with gray, how do I attach two lengths of blue? I have yet to find out if this is even kosher spinning practice. I wonder if I can spin the bit on the toilet roll onto the one I already have before I wind off to the toilet roll? Hmm….