More spinning!

So yesterday, thoroughly depressed by my (a) lack of progress on my thesis and (b) failure at spinning, I trekked all the way to a yarn store that advertized itself as selling spinning supplies. I asked for a lesson, and the very nice woman who owns the shop said that she couldn't do one then, but she'd be happy to give me one tomorrow (that's today). So today I went over there for my lesson.

It turned out that I had been doing things almost completely correctly, except for one thing. I had top (where the fibers are combed lengthwise) instead of roving, which meant that I couldn't spin it lengthwise (the way people do in pictures) and instead needed to spin it crosswise, tearing it into small pieces first. Once I tried doing that, spinning worked! And it meant that instead of having huge monstrous uneven yarn I have thin uneven yarn! But I have fewer lumps (and fewer horrendously thin places), but it also meant that I didn't have to spend forever drafting, and I even managed to spin without stopping the spindle every two seconds. It was fun! And wonderful! And made me all happy.

So now I just need to learn to ply. That should be exciting. =)