Tour de Fleece Day 3: Giving cotton a spin on the wheel

One of my goals--for some time now--has been to do some cotton spinning on the wheel.  I learned how to spin cotton on a supported spindle (listen to me, talking as if I'm an expert at spinning cotton on anything!), but believed it would be easier and faster on a wheel.

So I tried it.  And:  not so much.

No, I didn't spend a long time practicing it, but remember that I have some experience on a spindle.  ;-)   So, I knew to be sure to put enough twist into, to let the supply just rest in my hand, and able to judge that short staple length.   And I could do it--even a pretty darn thin single, which is what I wanted to to.  (I'm a quilter at heart, and this whole spinning thing started with wanting to experience what our foremothers would have had to go through in order to get fabric for  a quilt.  It would have been quite awhile ago and my actual ancestors would have been more likely to do linen than cotton, but ...there you have it.)

If I could slow down the take-up even more on the wheel I would like it better, and feel that I have more control over it.   I don't do much in the way of long draw, and I suppose cotton might lend itself to long draw--except that you have to make sure there's enough twist in it.  I did play around a bit with pinching the thumb and index finger of my draft hand to act as a gauge that would let through just the right amount of fiber as the wheel did the drafting.  That actually has some promise.

So, perhaps I'll give it some more practice on another day.  I'd like to get a charka one day and try spinning cotton on it.  For today, though, I think I learned what I wanted to learn as my goal.

Oh, and here's a bit of it 2-plied: