Spinzilla 2015... Team Handspinning News UK... FTW ! ! !

So, this week saw the first anniversary of the death of my Mother, and it's been very hard, for a number of reasons...
But, it was made a lot easier because I spent the week trying to spin as much yardage as I could in 7 days, with a bunch of truly AMAZING and inspiring people.
Goodness knows what I would have done without the focus, to be perfectly honest. I was just able to lose myself in the spinning process, concentrate on something other than this very heavy weight bearing down.

Of course, I had something to spin for... I want to make a 'Hopoholic' from Knittyspin, designed by Rachel Brown. 

I did a bit of planning a preparation beforehand, of course... I chose 3 fibres to work with Jacob/Bamboo (70/30), Merino D'Arles from John Arbon and our Spinzilla team was sponsored by Curtis Wools, so I used their Shetland for the third ply.

I spun and dyed a sample beforehand, then knitted it up, just to make sure I was happy with the fabric the over-dyed yarn made...

I managed 147g of my tricolour yarn... 

To explain the rules a little... You get the yardage for each ply you spin, then a yardage allowance for then plying it all together ... as mine was a 3 ply I managed 1059.6 Spinzilla yds ... was very hard going, 3 days work ! ! !

Spinning solid coloured fibres was quite boring actaully, so I decided to make Friday (Day 5) a 'Friday Fun Spin' (FFS of course), and I grabbed the most colourful thing I could find in my stash, and made a *beautiful* 80g 3ply 100% Merino barber-poled skein, which brought my total yardage on Sunday evening (last day) to 1756 Spinzilla yards... so close to a mile!!!

'For Fuchs Sake'

I have called this skein 'For Fuchs Sake'... which is a result of a Twitter conversation about the correct spelling of Fuchsia :P

I couldn't stop there! So, I worked like a crazy person to get the Mile, and finished spinning/plying 47g of the Curtis Wools Shetland at 11.30 pm... half an hour before it was over... PHEW ! ! !

So here it is, total yarn spun, with a Spinzilla Yardage of 2128 yds, which equates to 1.21 miles :)

To say I am happy, and really proud of myself is an understatement.I didn't even think I would make 1000yds, let alone over a mile.

I am also so proud to have been a part of it all with the awesomely talented Handspinning News UK team, led by the lovely Sheila :) 

We all challenged ourselves to the limit, supported each other when the going got tough, and moreover, I think we had a lot of fun and made some new friends.

What's not to love about that??

Massive thanks to Fibre East and Curtis Wools also, who were team sponsors :)

Bring on next year!!!