Tour de Fleece: Stage 7 & 8

I did spin on Friday (Stage 7), but somehow I didn't manage to get a picture.  I finished plying my green yarn (you can see it in the bottom of the picture up top, I haven't wound it off the bobbin yet). Yesterday for stage 8 I started spinning a braid of Wensleydale that I've had in my stash for at least 6 years.  It was immensely frustrating.  I want to get comfortable with long draw spinning, so I figured I would practice on this, but the staple length of the wensleydale is really really long, I was having trouble with the drafting, and the singles was lumpy and kept breaking on me.  I felt like I couldn't get enough twist in without having the twist all the way up to my fingers and the fiber I hadn't drafted back yet.  I think part of the problem is that the staple length is so long - I think 8-10".   

So after a few minutes I reverted to my modified short draw that I always do, but I might try to watch a few videos of people doing long draw and try again.  I don't think I'm going to like the finished yarn, so I figure this is really just for practice.  You can see in the picture of the combed top (there's about one staple length pulled off, split in half, and fluffed on the right) that the staple length is longer than the color changes, so there's no way the yarn isn't going to look muddy.  I also don't like how the colors are much more pastel in the spun singles than in the length of top.