Trying for a thicker AND looser spin...

The other day at the Fiber Festival, Jenny and I took a break and we were sitting on the lawn, whereupon I was looking in my bag of brought fiber to try spindles with, and discovered I had stuck my trial spin of that fiber in the bag. I showed it to her, and she said she's getting to where she can recognize my spins. She thinks they're unique, but couldn't explain why. Well, that's generally a compliment and I know she meant it as such, but I've been noticing that my spins tend to be TIGHT. The end result makes for a highly compressed yarn which has some disadvantages.

So with this top I wanted to try for a thicker yarn AND one with less spin. I've only been at it since the end of December, but habits die hard! It's still more overspun than I was after. I'm also finding that thick yarn is harder to spin in that invariable variations in the drafting (thickness) really show up! And they're fifty times more noticeable.

Here's what I've wound up with, at least so far. While it's good to wait until the whole top is spun to ply it, I just can't stand not knowing how it's coming out until it's all spun. I also tried a looser ply.

THE FIRST PHOTOS LIE: The yarn looks ever so perfectly consistent in terms of thickness. NOT!

No flash


With flash


This photo isn't in great focus but it shows what I mean by variations in thickness showing up so much more with a thicker yarn. Actually, you kind of really have to look close to see what I mean, the photo makes them look way more consistent than they are. Some of this is heavy worsted WPI, some is fingering or close to it.