New year, new yarn

Well, I finally finished spinning that little 4 oz bag of alpaca/wool that I started waaaaay back in November. I’m not that impressed with my yarn.  I got 278 yards of 2-ply:

You can see that the two plies aren’t very even.  I need to make a better effort when it comes to consistency.  I also need to work on plying – I just get so confused when I read articles about calculating the angle of twist and how I’m supposed to be able to see that without some scientific apparatus. 

Even though I divided my fiber in half and spun each half on its own bobbin, I had kind of a lot left over on one bobbin.  So I rewatched the navajo ply video and finished up the remaining singles.  Remember, navajo ply creates a chained 3-ply yarn.  This should look “rounder”: I have only 30 yards of this.

I spun the singles on my 10.5:1 whorl and plied them one size bigger (9:1).  I read somewhere that you should ply on the next whorl size up, so I tried that.  Not sure it made a huge difference on the two-ply.  It did make the navajo ply more manageable.

I’m resolved to keep on doing this until it gets better.  I think I’ll spin up those little bags in the spinner’s sampler I got at the farm show.  Since they are samples (1 oz each), I guess I’ll navajo ply so I don’t have to worry about dividing and then having leftover singles.

I keep reminding myself that I’ve put a LOT more practice into knitting than I have into spinning, and what I’m getting is still fairly beginner-level handspun.  I just need more practice.  Gotta get back on that horse. 

And I also want to start knitting more with my handspun.  I think that will help, as well.  My sock knitting improved considerably once I started wearing my own socks rather than giving them all away.  One gives oneself the most honest feedback!