Spinzilla 2014 - Final Tally

Here is the final tally. 10 skeins - #10 is a wee 41 yard skein of organic cotton singles. The final measure is 6,576 yards - 830 grams.

There are many things I would do differently - and thus be able to spin faster and more efficiently. But that's for a later blog post and my own reflections for next year.

Spinzilla 2014: Day 4

Here are the results from day 4 of Spinzilla. From bottom to top we have the following:

• 64 grams and 367 yards of Bluebird Cafe - the second half of the braid that I spun on day 3. Superwash merino, spun fine for plying into a DK. I'll probably do all my plying on Sunday - as that's easy to do around making a Thanksgiving feast.

• 97 grams and 292 yards of Penny Lane - superwash merino. These two skeins were spun to make soft singles. The merino will bounce up once it is washed and will fill out. If it isn't as thick as I want, I'll ply the two and get a chunky weight.

• 96 grams and 280 yards - same as above

DISCLAIMER: I am carefully documenting my progress not to show off, but so I can have a good record of what I managed to spin each day.

Last night I went to the second spin-in hosted by Team Sweet Georgia. It was great to meet the rest of the team and to see old friends. General consensus is that plying is a good deal. You get to finish your yarn and you get credit for plying, which is way faster than spinning singles. So what's to lose in that.

I also bought a couple more braids because they were the new fall colours - Bourbon and Grouse. Will spin those up today - polwarth and silk, can't wait.

Over and out.

Spinzilla 2014: Day 3

Day 3 of Spinzilla proved much more productive because I booked the day off work. I had as much time to spin as I wanted. Talk about delicious.

So here's what I produced. I finished the second half of the blue polwarth/silk you see at the top. Then I spun up the pink polwarth/silk you see in middle. And in the evening, I spun half a braid of Bluebird Cafe from the Sweet Georgia Yarns fibre club, September. It's Superwash Merino and spins like a dream. All these fibres spin wonderfully.

Oh, and during my breaks from spinning, I tidied my studio. I reorganized all my tools and fibre from the Knit City workshops I did over the weekend.

The total yardage for day 3 is 973 yards. Not bad at all. This year you get credit for plying your yarn, so I may take a break from spinning singles and ply the Temptress skeins from day 1 and the Bluebird Cafe skeins. We'll see. Right now I am just having fun busting through my stash and making a dent in it.

Tonight's the second spin-in at the Sweet Georgia Yarns studio, and I'll get to see other members of the team, and see what they've been up to.

Spinzilla 2014: Day 2

Day two of Spinzilla was a bit more difficult because I had to go into the city to work. I brought my tahkli along to spin cotton because it is so portable, and I can also get a decent amount of yardage on it. Finally.

So this is the amount I spun over lunch. I haven't measured it yet. I plan to fill another spindle with cotton, wind them into a double-stranded ball and ply it. Then I'll measure it. 

I didn't have much time after work as I had an Executive meeting for the Langley Weavers and Spinners Guild. Despite that, I brought my Ashford Joy along to the meeting and spun half of this skein. I finished it up on the morning of Day 3. So the yardage for this has to bridge two days.

And that ends the day 2 show and tell.

Spinzilla 2014: Day 1

I've been silent for a long while and there are a variety of excuses for this, but they aren't half as interesting as this. Ever since Monday, October 6th at 12:00 am I've been involved in the second Spinzilla contest.

Spinzilla is a monster of a spinning week. It is a full week where spinners sign up in teams to work to spin as much yardage as they possibly can. I was a member of the Sweet Georgia Yarns team in 2013. I spun 630 grams of fibre resulting in 4496 yds. That's 2.5 miles of singles!

I am surprisingly competitive, so this year I joined again and have challenged myself to beat my last years yardage. I gave myself an advantage this year by booking off the last three days of the week so I could spend the entire days spinning.

In the next several blog posts I will show you the progression of my spinning.

Here is day one:

This is the first bobbin. It is Temptress a Superwash Merino 80%, Cashmere 10%, and Nylon 10% blend from Sweet Georgia Yarns Fibre Club. I managed to do all this spinning around a work day. One hour in the morning right after I woke up. A half-hour a lunch time. And then when I booked off at 4:30 I spun my heart out putting in another three and a half-hours. 

And here it is wound up on the Niddy Noddy. That's the way I have decided to measure my yardage. For me it is a more precise way to measure the singles and it also conditions them by allowing the twist to even out as it it wound into a skein. The twist doesn't leave the singles, it just gets evened out along the line.

And here are two of the lovelies. Almost equal. The top one is 293 yds and the bottom one is 294 yds. Imagine that.

More tomorrow.