Spinzilla 2013: Team Fancy Tiger are the Champions!!

We just finished the first ever Spinzilla spinning competition. Spinzilla is a week long team competition that lasted from October 7th - 13th. We had 25 mighty team members spinning under Team Fancy Tiger. We spun our hearts out! The goal was to spin the most yardage of all within the week.  We've been anxiously checking the official Spinzilla blog for the past few days, but today we got a phone call...

Guess what? Tigers and tigresses, we won!  

Our total yardage for Team Fancy Tiger in one week was 94,939.73 yds. That is almost 54 miles and is longer than the state of Rhode Island!

This is what 94,939.73 yds looks like

Spinzilla was an amazing event and we had so much fun rallying with our team. We made so many new spinning friends and forged many fibery friendships over the course of the week at our SEVEN community spin nights.

Spin it to win it!!

Here are some of the secrets to our success if you're wondering how 25 people spun almost 100000 yards of yarn in a week.

1. Badass team pride tees. We had a screenprinting party where team members could screen print their own tees. Some of our team members are so hardcore, they screenprinted their jean jackets.

2. Rally Peeps. We couldn't have done it without our amazing rally guys and gals. Every spin night, these friends of Team Fancy Tiger would help us by counting all the yarn we were spinning, refilling our wine glasses, and emptying our bobbins. Our rally peeps also encouraged us to keep spinning in moments of doubt and tough times (cue Friday Night Lights theme music). Thanks so much to Alsn, Shannon, Betsy, Jess, Jesse, Caitlin and Curtis!

Jesse, Alsn, and Jess really rallied us.

3. Time off. Laura Chamberlain won our team prize of top spinner. Laura spun the most yards out of anyone on our team at 9212 yards in one week! Her secret - she took the week of work so she could have a spinning staycation. Nice work, Laura!

Laura took home the illustrious Rumpelstiltskin award.

4. Spinning in cars. Suzan drove from the Western Slope to Denver so she could spend the week spinning with us. We were really concerned about her losing the day of spinning (it's a 6 hour drive), but she assured us she would continue to spin the whole way here. Nice work, Suzan!

Don't stop spinning, even when driving over the mountains.

5. Camaraderie. Nothing makes you spin faster than being on a team of amazing, inspiring folks. Seeing everyone spinning so much really helped us all reach our personal goals for the team.

You guys...we had so much fun!

We are so proud thatTeam Fancy Tiger is the Spinzilla champion of 2013 - everyone did an amazing job! We love how super supportive everyone was and we are blown away by all of the amazing handspun yarn everyone made! We ♥ you Team Fancy Tiger! You were already winners in our book!

Harveyville Project: Yarn School!

Jaime and I have been dreaming of attending Yarn School for a few years now, and last week our dream came true! Yarn School is a retreat for handspinners in rural Harveyville, Kansas.

The 'School' in Yarn School? Well, the retreat takes place in a retired school building in Harveyville, run by Nikol Lohr. We slept in the classrooms and spun in the gymnasium. The "Dye Lab" took place in the old science lab that was left mostly untouched and worked perfect! Nikol cooked us amazing meals all weekend so all our time could be focused on fiber and spinning.

On the grounds of the school lives a motley herd of sheep (Shetland, Merino, Romney), a happy flock of chickens, two kitties and a dog named Georgie.

We arrived to the biggest circle of spinning wheels of all time, and found our spot amongst the wheels. We would hang out here much of the weekend and spin yarn to our hearts content.

Adrian of Hello Yarn shared some of her hand-dyeing tips and demonstrated several ways of dyeing wool roving.

We each had 4, 8 oz balls of roving to dye up and we experimented with dyeing them in crockpots and in the microwave...

Roving smells good and is exciting

Dye scientists Jaime and Amber cook up some roving

Everyone's fiber was then hung to dry and it was quite the sight! It was so fun to see what everyone dyed and to find your own fiber in this giant roving wall.

Jaime searches out her rovings...

Adrian also taught us various spinning techniques. Here she is demonstrating the long draw method using carded rolags. This method of spinning is how a woolen spun yarn is made. Long draw is a fast spinning method, but time must be taken to properly hand-card your fiber first.

We both got to try out spinning on Ashford's "Country Spinner." This wheel is huge and features the largest bobbin I've ever seen - it is made to spin art yarns and it worked great for this purpose.

Jaime plys art yarn on the Country Spinner

We made tons of yarn and dyed so much roving throughout the weekend. Here is Jaime's favorite handspun creation - a 2-ply worsted from the "Narwhal" roving that Adrian dyed.

Here is Jaime's sunshiny bulky art yarn made on the Country Spinner.

Jaime and I brought the leftover Indigo dye vats from last weekend's Makerie retreat and we used them to dye more yarn and roving. It was awesome to share these with our new Yarn School friends and many people left with beautiful Indigo fiber.

Amber is ombre dyeing her roving.

Megan's beautiful Indigo dyed yarn

Indigo superheros with Indigo roving necklaces

We couldn't resist dyeing some yardage of fabric with the Indigo dyes as well. We had a blast at Yarn School, thanks so much Nikol and Adrian for superfuntimes!

The Schacht Sidekick is Here!

Is it possible to fall in love with a spinning wheel? It sure feels like it when gazing upon the new Sidekick...

We just giddily unpacked the newest wheel from Schacht Spindle Company, our very favorite local spinning wheel crafters! This little spinning wheel is light and compact enough to sling over your shoulder and take on a stroll down to the park--which is just what I did to try it out for myself.

The Sidekick goes from a tidy little package to a super functional spinning wheel in seconds, with the use of quick releases just like you might find on your bicycle wheel.

Check out how sweet this is...

You just (1) unscrew and flip down the treadles, sliding and locking them into place with a quick release knob. Then (2) you attach the footmen to the treadles. (3) Open and raise the front and rear maidens by using the quick releases and (4) place the flyer (with bobbin and whorl) into the maidens. Close down your quick releases and you are ready for spinning!

Spinning on it is dreamy!

Some additional reasons we love the new Sidekick:

• All the parts are thoughtfully stored on it so there are no important pieces on the loose. (The two whorls are screwed onto the side of the wheel for safe keeping and the flyer attaches to the bottom of a treadle when it is folded away.) 
• The drive wheel runs parallel to the treadle for super compact-ness. 
• Spinning on it is so smooth and quiet. 
• It's just so danged tiny and cute! 

A whorl in it's place  | One of the Sidekick's quick releases

Can you tell I've fallen hard for this little guy?