Regarding the chulyot -even though I’m wrapping 3 times – sometimes it looks like 2 wraps and other times it looks like 4 -what am I doing wrong?

Yes, it is a well known “problem” that due to where the shamash comes out of the previous double knot, the chulya may be misaligned + or – a half turn. I believe that as long as you wrap three times you have a kosher hulya – as that is the language of Rebbi in Menahot when he describe how to make a hulya “wrap once, twice, three times”.
– Mois Navon.