Spinzilla Results

I was pretty ambitious but didn't quite meet my goals in spinning time this past week for Spinzilla.

Work got in the way a bit and Pepper had another episode so I skipped a couple of days.

I did get through one of the two bags of rolags and spun up singles on three bobbins.

I have one bag left and I think I ended up with 860 yards as my result.  I did a cheating measurement by weighing the bobbins and measuring out a few yards to equate with weight in grams and after the calculation, it was far short of my goal.

Spinzilla - Day 1

I wasn't crazy and did not stay up until midnight to start spinning for Spinzilla, but I did get up extra early this morning and spun for about 50 minutes before work.

I decided to spin my merino/bamboo that I blended on my drum carder.

I held the punis under my arm like a football and spun from the center.

Using my sidekick with woolee winder.

At the end of the day, this is what my bobbin looked like.

Spinzilla Training Session One

For my first time trial, I decided to spin some llama, merino, and silk fiber that I bought a while back.  It seems that I had spun up about half of the 4 ounces of fiber and I had already separated out the fiber into 1 ounce increments.

The first time trial was on my regular bobbin on the Sidekick wheel and it took me exactly 30:55.84.

For the second time trial, I switched to my woolee winder bobbin so I could save some time moving from hook to hook but it took me 29:47.58 for the second ounce of fiber.

Not much time savings, but I think I will be sticking to the woolee winder for Spinzilla.

After letting the bobbin rest a couple of days, I measured out the yardage and I got 94 yards for both time trials.

If I spin for 3 hours a day during the week, I should be able to get 2,820 yards - the goal is a mile which is 1,760 yards. I also have a weekend that I can make up time and yardage.

Now all I need to do is decide what I am going to spin during that week.

Spinzilla

While I was in Santa Fe, Kim of Lucky Cat Crafts, asked me to be part of her Spinzilla team this year.

Spinzilla is sponsored by TNNA and funds a scholarship to teach the art of spinning.  This is the second year of the competition where "teams" compete against each other in a wide range of topics the most important being the most yardage spun during the week.

The contest run from October 6 at midnight to October 11 at midnight regardless of your timezone.

There are multiple strategies employed to boost the yardage of your spinning as well as multiple fiber kits to purchase for sampling to see what you can spin the fastest.

Decisions to be made:

1.  What to spin
2.  Do I spin for a project
3.  What kind of spinning
4.  What kind of fiber prep
5.  Since it is a work week - what can I realistically hope to accomplish
6.  Am I crazy

I have been contemplating my strategy and have some ideas I'm going to practice before October.  I figured that I would test out two methods of measuring - one by weight and one by time.

For weight, I would measure out an ounce of fiber and see how long it takes me to spin it up and then measure the yardage of the spun single.

For time, I would spin for an hour and measure the yardage of the spun single.

I figure I can realistically spin an hour before work if I get up early and a couple of hours after work before bed.

Now to stash dive for fiber and start the preparation as well as start conditioning myself to spin every day.  Or do I succumb to all the fiber specials that are being posted?

Lucky Cat's team is full up with 25 members but if you want to join the mayhem, there are many other teams to join.