Spin Me Right 'Round, Baby, Right 'Round

Lookee!

Golding "Learn to Spin" kit and Knitpicks Wysteria Editions Wool Roving pack

I was so excited about starting to spin that I coerced my wonderful Fiasco into giving me my birthday present at the stroke of midnight, Cindarella-style. :)

It's a nice, solid, 3", 1.9 oz drop spindle with a cherry whorl, walnut shaft, and dragon heartstring core. (teehee... Yes, I know this isn't Harry Potter, but it really is a little like magic!)

First attempt!

I struggled a bit with drafting the fibers correctly, so I have a lot of messy bits where the pieces overlap. The roving I used was different than I expected from the books I read, it was already combed neatly and seemed to be drafted already, when I tried to separate the fibers a little bit the strip just fell apart. So I tried just pulling a thin strip off the roving and spinning it as it was without any more drafting and it seemed to work better. It made a smoother, more consistent yarn when I just connected strip after strip. It's probably not the most efficient way to do this and I'm probably not explaining it right, but later on I'll do some youtube video research and see if I can puzzle out how other people work with roving like this.

Do you have any favorite spinning resources/videos that I should check out?