Mark your calendars for a monster of a Spinning week! Spinzilla is a week-long competition designed to motivate spinners to learn new skills, take risks, and spin until they can’t spin anymore! Spinzilla is also a fundraiser for the NeedleArts Mentoring Program (NAMP), a program run by The National NeedleArts Association (TNNA). The program provides supplies and other resources to teach younger generations handspinning and the needle arts.

October may seem like it’s a long time away, but it’ll be here before you know it! Here are 3 ways to get prepared for Spinzilla 2016:

1. Save the Date: We’ll be hosting our own Team Purl Diver again this year, and we’d love to have you join us! If you are interested in joining our team, let us know as soon as possible so that we can save you a spot. The competition takes place October 3-9, 2016, and space on each team is limited to 25 spinners! Please drop by the shop or call us at (941)487.7914; you can also email us at [email protected] to reserve your spot!
2. Take stock. Do you have enough to spin a Monster Mile…or maybe two? Depending on your output, you may be surprised at the amount of spinning fiber you can get through in a week’s time. If this is your first year competing, a reasonable rule of thumb is to have 2-3 four-ounce braids for each day of spinning – you may not get through all of them, but it’s better to have too much fiber than to run out midway through the event!
3. Prep your fiber ahead of time. By preparing all of your fiber before the big event, you will have even more time to spend spinning once Spinzilla arrives. Beth Smith shared some of her best tips for production spinning which can be found on her blog archive here. You can also find lots of great fiber preparation tips here on the Spinzilla website. If you plan to card or comb your fiber, be sure to check out these tips by Kate Larson Textiles.

If you’ve participated in Spinzilla before, we’d love to hear your best tips for ultra-fast spinning in the comments!

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