How I'm Spinning Cotton

 I have been gifted over the years with picked bolls of upland (short staple) cotton. I even grew some from seed that was then swarmed with bugs. The idea of spinning from a boll is so tempting.  But I could not do it, even with hand card prep. (I will need lessons on how to do that...)

Cotton is attractive to me because I live in a warm climate, and I think I'd like to weave with handspun cotton..

Two years ago, I bought an absurd amount of cotton at SAFF, blog post here. Three huge balls of sliver (the cotton term for roving). I decided to retry. I knew that my "inchworm" technique would not work unless I wanted a thick and thin result due to the short staple.  This is supposed to be Sea Island cotton but the staple is still really short, about an inch.

Here are some inchworm efforts:

I watched 2 videos on youtube that told me to speed up my wheel and use long drawver and a hunk of the sliver. No go for me. (I haven't tried puni's.)

A friend loaned me a charka that needed to be put together. Oh no.  I just want to spin!

Then a friend, Suzy of SWHFiberworks, mentioned that she SLOWS down her wheel,  SPLITS the sliver, and draws only minimally. OK, FINALLY!

Here is an unsplit piece of sliver

Abnd here is one that's been split into 1/8, I  might even be able to go to 1/16 if I'm careful

And here are some spun results. I should measure the wraps per inch but I know it's better than the inchworm technique