pulling yarn like taffy

Part of the excitement of this lovely bundle of alpaca is how it's encouraging me to learn about spinning. Right now I'm working on longdraw drafting, still working through the hairier stuff that I pulled out for practice pieces. I dyed it green - some came out blue from the tailings in the dyepot. I spun up the blue without any particular aim, and navajo plied it into 38 yards of somewhat lumpy yarn. Then I took my time carding the really green stuff into smooth rolags - smaller is better it seems, or at least easier. I've spun a bobbin and a half of that, learning along the way. First lesson (learned from the blue stuff, actually): the smoother your fiber prep, the smoother you can make the yarn. Spinning won't magically make those lumps go away. Second lesson: don't try to spin alpaca when it's hot and humid - sticky hands make more lumps.
Londraw in particular has been challenging (maybe I should give it more than 2 days?) but still more fun than frustrating. The basic idea is to build up twist in a few inches of yarn, then let that twist into the fiber mass, getting just the right amount of twist per inch to let the fibers slip past each otherinto a nice even yarn. This is the part that feels like pulling taffy when you get it right, which I have once or twice. I think there's also something going on with thick spots taking up less twist, so they keep slipping while the thinner parts stay as they are. This doesn't always work the way I think it should - I've had a lot more breaks and thin spots in this yarn than when I was doing short-draw. When it cools off a bit I'll finish the second bobbin and ply them onto a CD spindle. Then I get to start on the really soft stuff!! or work on making wool combs - we got the welding rods for them today, much puzzling the fellows behind the counter. "good luck with your yarning" they said as we left.