More spinning

It's been kind of a major weekend of spinning for me.  For those of you not in law school, this is how it works.  Your whole grade is determined by your score on the final exam.  There are no mid-terms, essays, or anything else for the 13 weeks of the semester, just general reading homework and class leading up to one big test.  While this makes the last third of the semester absolute hell, it actually means that the first several weeks of the semester are kind of relaxed (at least I've never begun preparing before the half-way mark--too likely to forget before the test comes.)  I've taken the relatively relaxing beginning of the semester to get lots of fun fiber stuff done (in anticipation of the later hell that will keep me from the fiber.)

For Christmas, my mom gave me this yummy soft alpaca merino blend.  Turns out there is an alpaca farm not far from where she works and she stopped by to investigate.  She picked me up this naturally color fiber along with two lighter shades as well.  My mom also got me the drop spindle for me for my birthday.  It's the Knit Picks Turkish spindle.  The quality of the spindle is only so-so.  Clearly an example of "you get what you pay for."

I spin a drop spindle by flicking the shaft between my fingers (sort of like you would as if you were snapping.)  This particular spindle doesn't work well with my method because the arms don't fit very snuggly around the shaft.  This means that sometimes the shaft spins but the arms don't.  Now that I have more fiber wrapped around the arms, it seems to prevent this problem, but it was a real pain when I was first starting.  I only have about 2 ounces, so my plan is to try to spin this as a stable single to maximize yardage.  We'll see if it works...