6 Ways to Get Ready for Spinzilla!

Spinzilla will be here in just a few short weeks, and all of us on #TeamWoolery are gearing up for a successful event! As we all know, practice makes perfect, and Spinzilla is the perfect way to challenge yourself to take your spinning to the next level!

Last month, we shared some suggestions for goals to set during Spinzilla; today, we'd like to share our top 6 suggestions to help you prepare for a monster of a spinning week!

1. Check out the Spinzilla Blog Tour & FAQs. This year's blog tour topics include plying, estimating how much fiber to have on hand, photographing your finished skeins of handspun yarn, and more. We also recommend reading over the Spinzilla FAQ's to make sure you are familiar with the rules, especially since there have been a few changes since last year's event. Most notably, spinners who choose to ply their yarn this year will receive a plying credit to count towards their total yardage (more on that here). You can review the entire Spinzilla FAQ here.

2. Clear Those Bobbins! Now is a great time to make sure that all of your bobbins are free of leftover singles and ready for use. Depending on whether or not you plan on plying your yarn during the event, you may also wish to stock up on extra bobbins or storage bobbins to accommodate all of your singles. For those of you who plan on plying throughout Spinzilla, click here to read our blog post from earlier this year which discusses various plying options!

3.  Prepare Your Fiber. Doing your prep work ahead of time will make it a breeze to spin like the wind! Here are some common preparations you may wish to try:

Predraft Roving: Perhaps the easiest of these three options, predrafting your roving ahead of time will allow you to run it through your wheel quickly. There is a fantastic photo tutorial demonstrating 3 ways to predraft roving here on the Craftsy blog.

Hand Cards

• Rolags or Punis: An ideal preparation for woolen-style spinning, rolags or punis can be made with the use of hand cards or a blending board. Another benefit of spinning from rolags or punis is that they are easy to take on-the-go!
• Batts: If you have access to a drum carder, batts are a rather versatile option to explore for spinzilla. There are number of ways you can spin with the resulting sheet of fiber created, and they are also a great way to use up leftover bits and bobs of fibers from your stash (click here for an excellent article from the KnittySpin archives to explore this topic a little more).

4. Be a Master of Measuring Yarn. There are many ways to efficiently measure your handspun yarn such as a yarn meter,  yarn balance or niddy noddy. Below you'll find each of these three options, plus links to tutorials to help you learn how how to use each one to measure your yardage!

Yardage Counter - It Does All The Counting For You!

Yarn Balance - Click here for a photo tutorial

5. Perform Routine Maintenance. You're about to ask your wheel to do a lot more work than it's probably used to, so make sure it's up to the challenge by performing a little routine maintenance beforehand! We have an easy-to-follow guide to spinning wheel maintenance here in our blog archives; at the very least, we recommend oiling your spinning wheel throughout the week of Spinzilla to keep things running smoothly - watch our video below for a quick demonstration!

6. Clear Your Schedule! Before Spinzilla starts on October 6, make sure you've taken care of as many chores and other tasks as possible. Clean the house, prepare some meals in advance, or arrange to have planned activities for the kiddos to allow maximum spinning time during the week of Spinzilla.

Avec Joie, Chris, Nancy and the entire Woolery team