Help!: A Spinning Tutorial

You've procured a spinning wheel and put it together, and now it's time to spun! Buuuuuut.... 

Your thread breaks
Your fiber makes big chunks (slubs) 
Your yarn looks like a telephone cord
The cord falls off
The Fiddlefarting wheel won't turn the right way

This is my face, which you can't see, but I am utterly unsurprised. I've literally had all of things happen. 

​Learning to spin is a definite skill. Joseph is ridiculously good at it. He can draft and he can blend. He can, in homage to the words of the Peter Pan song, ply, he can ply, he can ply. I, in case you were wondering, cannot. So! I suggested that we film a spinning tutorial where Joseph--the yarn magician--taught me--the yarn apprentice, to put it mildly--how to spin using one of our wheels. 

First, Joseph starts out by demonstrating the basics of spinning. Note the pinchy finger technique. A word from the bleachers: learn the pinchy finger technique. Your life will be so much better. 

Then, he teaches me how to spin. This is, for the naysayers out there, ACTUAL PROOF that I have successfully spun at least once. In the first picture, I use a piece of yarn to get the bobbin started. In the second, I spin chonky alpaca yarn. 

Ta da! Success! While I might not spin professionally, it was fun to ply the trade (literally) for a trial run. Even more important, now I know how to make the yarn I can use to knit with. 

If you're struggling with your wheel, you're not alone. Now we understand a little more fully why the miller's daughter sat down and cried when the king asked her to change flax into gold. Too bad she didn't have Youtube. 

Here's a link to that tutorial: Spinning Tutorial. Happy spinning!