Trying for Less Spin

My last two skeins of hand spun yarn have been a little rougher than I would like.  I've been getting more consistent with my drafting, so this was causing me to try to spin and treddle faster.  More twist in the yarn = more rope like.  It is time to try to slow things down and get less spin into the fibers.  (Hopefull with less breaks!)

I'm using some natural colored Montadale Combed top that I  received as part of my generous gift. The fiber has a LOT of crimp to it.  It is a really pretty color, brown flecked with white.  The fiber is a bit slippery and it is hard to re- join if I break the continuous flow.

A bit too late (30 g into spinning), I decided I wanted to make this a 2 ply (rather than Nply) yarn.  I zeroed the scale with a blank spindle and leader, and then split the rest of the yarn to make two 39/40 g bunches.  Hopefully I will get close on yardage.  (With what remains, I can make a mini 2-ply skein from the center pull ball method.  This yarn is so fuzzy that I didn't want to do this with the entire thing.)

I'm really concerned that there is so little twist that I am going to break the singles a ton when I ply.Before I ply the yarn, I weighted the spindles.  Both weigh 95 g.  (But, of course, this is what I had planed on when I divided the fiber with weighting hte spindles)

So far so good.  No breakage of the singles and the plying is going easily.  The yarn is really soft and yarny (not ropy) so I think I achieved my less twist.  However.... some of this may be due to the crimpiness of the fiber itself and not my spinning technique.  i will need to try this "less is more" twist action in a different fiber as well.

There was only a little yarn left on the second spindle, so I wound this into a center pull ball and then used both ends to create a 2-ply miniskein.

So just after writing this I had my break.  Rather than adding a knot, I just have a small region of 3 ply yarn.  No harm no foul.  Right?   This is why it is better to make this a 2ply yarn than single ply.  Stronger is much better!

Big Skein: 196 wraps = 261 yards 2ply   76 g

Mini Skein (not pictured): 8 wraps + 1 ft = ~11 yards 3 g

17 WPI = Sport weight

Finished in Jan 2013.