Mohair behaving badly

Yesterday I picked up 16 oz of some pretty gorgeous mohair roving at the yarn donation shop (I figure I was donating to charity with the purchase!), and decided to try spinning up a little of it in the evening.

Predrafting it was a breeze, it predrafts like a dream, separating into soft fluffy cloudlike fibers, lustrous, and shiny. It proceded then to coat EVERYTHING with a fine layer of sticky fibers. My black pants looked like they had been coated with a layer of multicolour fuzz, I'm hoping the washing machine will fix that, but I have my doubts.

The spinning itself was tough, it drafts well, almost too well, the fibers weren't sticky enough for the high speed whorl, the roving kept separating out, and then I had to keep attaching more bits over and over again. I think part of my problem was the high speed whorl that I didn't bother to remove before I tried to spin the mohair. It was spinning too fast, and causing the end single ply to be way way overspun, and because of that I wasn't really able to get the single ply to draw in fast enough, yet slow enough to get even twist that wasn't way over twisted.

In the end, I think I managed about an ounce in about 30 mins, 2 ply, and very pretty looking, shiny, yet hard as a rock, very rope like. Reading up on how to spin mohair, it suggests to spin from the fold, and perhaps at a very low speed with barely enough twist to hold it together, otherwise you get tough rope like yarn (much like what I was able to produce)

It is a very interesting fiber to try, and I'm looking forwards to my next attempt, however I think it may be a bit in the future while I figure out what exactly I should be doing to get it to work better :) Plus, I have all this other well behaving fiber to play with. :)