The shame of Tencel

Spinning Blue-Faced Leicester together with Tencel is more difficult than anticipated. First, the Tencel does not draft smoothly while the Leicester does, resulting in far more slubs than I'd care to admit. Secondly, I'm trying to spin a two-ply bulky yarn, which requires giant, hurking singles the likes of which I haven't spun since I switched from a hand spindle to a spinning wheel. For comparison, here is about my average single, waiting to be Navajo-plied into a self-striping sock yarn:


Here, on the other hand, is the Leicester:


I figure I'm spinning about 8 WPI at the moment, plus slubs. The Leicester is so plump and bouncy that I hate to ply the life out of it later, so I'm sticking with my two-ply bulky, though it causes me such anguish. Here was the beautiful newly-dyed wool before I started trying to blend it with the Tencel:


Here are the little pre-drafted cheeses, waiting to be spun:


Poor little cheeses...they don't know what's in store for them. Oh well. To clear my mind of their tragic destiny, I'm going to pause on this project and spin up the hand-dyed silk that came today from E-bay. More pics to come.