Second Skein

I finished spinning up the little bit of Knit Picks roving** that I ordered and I had to force myself to finish that second single so that I could ply. I did not get along with that fiber well at all and I'm glad to see it gone.

I plied it about a week ago (I think...  this past week has seemed to last about ten times as long as any other week) and tried to keep in mind the whole time that beginners often under ply as I've been reading. I totally get that now. After setting the twist and letting the yarn dry, I can see a lot of under-plied places in the yarn. I think I got better at maintaining an even twist as I went as well as a  better handle on maintaining the tension between the singles.

I'm really happy with how it turned out for my second-ever skein.

I've moved onto 4 oz. of this really pretty dark red. The photo is not accurate to the color- it's less purple and much richer red with a blue undertone, not orange. My understanding is that it is a mix of 2 different kinds of wool, not identified by breed on the tag. It's a little more coarse than the previous fiber but has been SO much easier to spin and to spin finer. I don't know enough to really explain why that is yet, but I hope to know such things in the future.

I'm not using park and draft very often any more and now that I can actually let the spindle go I'm able to get into a good rhythm. I'm still working on not holding so much tension in my arms while I spin. I tend toward tendinitis issues after some pretty severe issues that cropped up when I was a young violinist and it took a long while to re-learn some playing technique so that I could resolve it. I had some issues pop up when I started knitting too and had to be very careful about technique so that my arms stay healthy.

If you're a spinner and you see anything wrong with what I'm doing, please tell me! I'm reading a lot, practicing a lot and watching a lot of videos. I'm hoping to make a trip back to the shop where I learned to spin a few weeks ago but it's a long haul from here.

** I'm new to this whole spinning thing and while I know a lot of terms as far as what the words are, I'm still mixing things up and I know from my reading that the whole roving/top thing is a contentious mistake to make. My apologies if I'm wrong and it is in fact top rather than roving.