Little bit of spinning

A week ago, the last friday of September, we had another expressions in spinning group. This time the choice of inspiration was music. The song that got picked was "Dancing Queen" by Abba. After liking the alpaca so much, I was looking for the appropriate color for my yarn and ended up getting some yak and not alpaca. I also got some sari silk to card together with the yak. Trying to spin the yak on my lightest suspended spindle caused much frustration and loss of good fiber and general unhappiness. Yak is a very short fiber, like cashmere and angora, and I wasn't able to get enough twist in fast enough to keep it from breaking every time I tried to have it bear the spindle's weight. A quick search on Ravelry revealed that if I wanted to spin the yak without dropping my spindle every 5 seconds, I needed a different sort of spindle - a supported spindle. A supported spindle spins in a little bowl or hard surface and the fiber never has to bear it's weight. So I got a new spindle in the mail last friday and I've been test driving it with some merino out of Laurie's stash. I am not over the moon about it's color but it's working well for practice. Not only am I learning the ropes of a new spindle, I'm trying to learn a new drafting technique - long draw. From what I've read, it's the best way to spin really short fibers. It's been fun weekend, practicing these new things. I'm still a little scared to actually try spinning the yak right now, so more practice is in order. From some work I did for my mom, she is being very generous and two new russian support spindles are being made for me. I love spinning lace weight yarn and these support spindles are the best way to do that :). The pictures are of the support spindle that came last friday and the little bit of usable yarn that came of my disastrous attempt and spinning the yak on my suspended spindle, as well as a picture of the yak fiber I have. It's so soft, I'm hoping I will have enough to make a small shawl.