Spinning Improvement

I had my spinning class on Saturday with Lucy from Minds Eye Yarns and it was so great! She showed me exactly how to do it and it wasn't that hard at all. She even taught me how to ply with the first handspun I did at home (without instruction, it was pretty bad and I unfortunately forgot to take a picture of it before it was plyed so you could see just how bad) and she said that it was actually better then her first hand spun ( i find that hard to believe but I digress). Here is a picture of my very first plyed handspun in merino wool, colorway Tahiti from Spunky Eclectic

Not too bad I guess. There is only 30 yards lol so I am not sure what I am going to with it. Lucy suggested making a hat with similar colors and putting in a stripe or rim of handspun. Not a bad idea and I dont want it to go to waste =)

While I was there I bought some white wool roving and a better spindle. I like the one I bought on ebay but she said it might be a little light in weight for a beginner so I just bought a better one. It was only $16 =) and 4oz of roving was only $8 so it was a good deal.

Sorry about the blurry pic, I am a horrible photographer indoors, next time I will take everything in outside in the sunlight. The spindle is by Ashford and I hear that is a pretty good company for spinning equipment.

So all of Sat and Sun, as soon as I had a spare moment I was spinning on my new spindle. I even went to Borders to get a spinning magazine call Spin Off to get some tips and ideas. Here is a pic with the spindle I bought on Ebay. I am actually spinning a little on it now.

And here is what I have done so far with the white roving. My plan is to spin and ply all of it and then bring it back to Minds Eye Yarns in the winter because they have dying classes. I want to make my own colorway =)

I had to wrap it around a bottle from the spindle because I dont have a yarn winder and this is all I had at the time. Lucy said toilet paper rolls are the best, I will keep that in mind next time we run out ^_~