An experiment

One of the dogs decided a braided piece of wool/silk was irresistible and chewed it to pieces.  (Note: dogs might have a future as felt manufacturers...)  I salvaged what I could of the fiber and spun two kinds of singles.  One of the larger pieces became very, very thin yarn spun on my lightest spindle, and the other pieces became a much thicker, lower twist single spun on my wheel:

I decided to play with different plying techniques on my wheel and I've come up with a few small lengths of different yarns.  The important lesson for me with this experiment was humility.  I have enjoyed a string of successes (ha! pun partially intended) with my spinning in the last month and I was apparently feeling too confident.  The spinning gods decided I needed to struggle with my wheel in order to restore a bit of proper meekness in my craft life. 

I swear, I could not find the sweet spot of tension settings with this experiment.  I had treadling problems, draw-in problems, whistling wheel bands, yarn catching on hooks, you name it, I experienced it.  I would solve one problem for another to crop up.   

So after some cursing and struggle, I came up with two yarns: (1) a bit of artsy flame yarn, where I plied the thicker single in a wrapping motion around the thin single, and (2) a bit of n-plied thick single for a small amount of 3-ply yarn.  The third yarn in the picture is the ball of remaining thick single after playing with my plying.  I decided this was plenty of experimenting.  I have enough yarn to make a really fancy, highly textured coaster and I've decided to stick with that result.  I bow my head in respect to the spinning gods and will hope to have a less frustrating experience with my next yarn.