Spinning while he is looking at me...

I started on the Corriedale Natural Wool roving today.

It has been a lovely day and I took a meter worth of it out on the front porch and used one of my new drop spindles. It's made of polymer clay but spins very nicely. I figured out that when I pull out "locks" of the wool (not sure what else to call them), the thinner a lock I pull, the thinner I can spin the single.

Needless to say at this point, my future yarn is going to be thin, thick, odd and irregular but I'm giving myself a break because it's a new thing and I'm sure I will improve.

Ken started out getting quite a chuckle out of watching me getting started and struggling for a few minutes. But he quieted down after a bit as the consistency of my yarn got better, my spinning become more consistent and faster and the pile of roving started disappearing from the back of the chair at my side.

I'm proud of myself for not giving up. In the end I wrapped my spinning efforts off the spindle and onto one of those monster knitting needles. I weighed the needle's partner then the needle with the spun wool and found I had spun an ounce.

I really like this wool. The fiber length is long and I'm finding it fairly easy to manage. I only had a couple of times when the spindle got away from me at the same time I lost my grip on my roving strip and got it all tangled together. I will continue to work on it. I have found it easier to draft with my right hand and spin with my left (and I'm probably spinning backwards, but at this point, I refuse to worry about it). I spun it clockwise.