How It Works - Spin Together

Spin Together is about the joy of spinning and the opportunity to share that joy with others who also love to spin. It’s also a fun team-based competition that will take place beginning at noon on February 17, 2024, and ending at noon on February 24, 2024. It will begin and end at noon your time. It all takes place online, and you can participate from anywhere in the world.

The How It Works page in conjunction with the FAQS page constitute the official rules. Void where prohibited.

Here’s how it works:

Creating Teams

Teams are at the heart of the Spin Together competition since every spinner will be part of one. You can sign up to create a team anytime between January 1st and January 15th, 2024.

Anyone can create a team, but most teams are created by brick-and-mortar yarn shops, online yarn shops, manufacturers of spinning tools and equipment, and spinning guilds. The maximum number of spinners for each team is 25, and that includes the team captain.

We want Spin Together to be accessible to even the smallest fiber arts shop, so the only monetary requirement for team captains is to sponsor two prizes worth at least $25 each. There are higher sponsorship levels available, but that’s the minimum. Prizes must be electronic gift cards.

There are other responsibilities related to being a captain. You can learn more about them on the Create a Team page.

Joining a Team

You will be able to sign up for the team of your choice beginning on January 20, 2024, and ending on February 4, 2024. It’s a good idea to sign up early if you can to enjoy the camaraderie leading up to the competition.

Since Spin Together is intended to do just what the name suggests, we have decided there will not be rogue spinners. Every spinner will choose a team to join. The fee to sign up will be $15, and if you can, we ask that you also make a donation to Habitat for Humanity when you sign up. They do tremendous work making it possible for people to live in safe housing in keeping with human dignity.

Regarding choosing a team, it makes sense to choose one that you have some connection to if possible. A guild that you are part of or a shop that you frequent would be natural choices. (By all means, please do feel free to encourage your guild or favorite yarn store to create a team.) If no such team exists, it would be best to choose one that is in the same country as you or at least one in a country that speaks the same language. If that isn’t possible either, that’s okay. You are welcome to choose any team you like that still has spaces available.

In the weeks leading up to the competition, you’ll have the opportunity to get to know your fellow teammates through the Facebook or Ravelry group your team captain sets up. Your team captain will email you the link to your team group and other team info as soon as you sign up. There is also a Facebook group for the whole competition, and we encourage you to join that as well. That’s the main hub for all the news pertaining to Spin Together.

If you’re trying to decide if you have enough experience spinning to join Spin Together, please don’t worry. Spinners are some of the kindest souls around, and you’re sure to find good advice and help from your fellow team members and team captain and on the Spin Together Facebook group too. We just ask that you only join a team if you are ready to commit to spinning on most days of the competition.

The competition will begin at noon your time on February 17, 2024, and it will end at noon your time on February 24, 2024.

Awards

We want to encourage you to spin in any way that you enjoy, so in addition to awarding those who spin the most yardage, we have a few other awards as well. Here’s a rundown of all the different awards:

Spin Together Highest Yardage Team Award – This award goes to the team that spins the most yardage by the end of the contest.

Spin Together Highest Average Yardage Team Award – This award goes to the team where each member of the team has the highest average yardage spun. This is our way of equaling the playing field between full teams of 25 and smaller teams. To figure out who wins this award, we’ll take the yardage spun by the whole team and divide it by the number of team members. If the same team wins both the Highest Average Award and the Spin Together Team Award, then we will award the Highest Average Award to the team with the second-highest average so we can share the joy.

Spin Together Award for Highest Yardage Spun by an Individual Spinner on a Spindle – If you spin all of your yarn on a spindle during the week of Spin Together, you’ll be entered in this competition. Both supported and unsupported spindles count in this category, but kick spindles count as spinning wheels.

Spin Together Award for Highest Yardage Spun by an Individual Spinner on a Spinning Wheel – If you spin all or part of your yardage on a spinning wheel and none of it on an e-spinner, you’ll be entered in this competition. For the purposes of the competition, kick spindles and great wheels both count as spinning wheels.

Spin Together Award for Highest Yardage Spun by an Individual Spinner on an E-Spinner – If you spin all or part of your yardage on an e-spinner, you’ll be entered in this competition. If it has a battery or an electric cord, it counts as an e-spinner.

Spin Together Award for the Most Beautiful Skein – We are offering an award for the most beautiful skein of yarn spun by an individual. This year every team member who wants to will be upload a nice photo of your most beautiful skein. The deadline to enter your skein is February 28th. Entries may utilize commercial cores and add-ins, however, at least one ply must be spun during the competition week, and all plying must be done during the competition week for the Most Beautiful Skein contest (see How to Count Your Yardage below for more details).

Spin Together Award for the Wildest Art Yarn Skein – We are offering an award for the most wildest art yarn skein spun by an individual. This year every team member who wants to will be upload a nice photo of your wildest skein. The deadline to enter your skein is February 28th. Entries may utilize commercial cores and add-ins, however, at least one ply must be spun during the competition week, and all plying must be done during the competition week for the Wildest Art Yarn Skein contest (see How to Count Your Yardage below for more details).

Each spinner is welcome to enter either or both of the Most Beautiful Skein and Wildest Art Yarn Skein contests at no additional cost. We want to you to have the opportunity to spin the way you love, and we are looking forward to seeing more really wild and really beautiful skeins this year! Winners will be selected via popular vote by Spin Together spinners.

Prizes

We are working hard to get prize sponsors so that there will be a prize for every award winner. As the donors of the prizes let us know what they’ll be able to donate, we’ll let you know too in the Facebook group and the sponsor page. This year we hope/expect to be able to offer 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place prizes for each individual competition as well as prizes for each member of the two winning teams. If you are in a position to sponsor a prize, please visit the sponsor page for more information. We would be so very grateful!

How to Count Your Yardage for the Competition

Here are the general rules for how to measure your yardage for the competition with how different yarn constructions can be counted below.

All yardage spun during the competition should be measured physically and not with a yarn balance.
You should measure your yardage before washing it. That only seems fair since some fibers shrink more than others when they are washed.
Go ahead and measure it while it is on your niddy-noddy or skein winder. It’s easier that way, and if everyone does it that way, the fact that you’ll get a little higher yardage won’t matter.
We are including a plying credit. That means that plying yarn counts just like spinning it so long as you spin at least two plies of the yarn. More about that below.
In order to maximize creative options, you may use a commercial core for corespinning or a commercial ply for autowrapping, bubble-plying, or any other use if you so desire so long as at least one ply of the finished yarn has been spun by you during the competition week and all plying of the finished yarn has likewise been done during the competition week. Just keep in mind that any commercial elements you choose to use will not count for yardage, and in order to count the plying credit, at least 2 plies of the yarn must be spun by you during the competition week. See below for examples.

For the yardage competitions, here’s how to measure different yarn constructions:

Here’s the general formula for “normal” yarns:

Length in Yards x (Number of times through the orifice)

Once you start getting more complicated, the math gets more complicated. Here are some examples to help:

Examples with No Commercial Elements

If you spin a singles yarn, measure your total yardage and round up to the nearest yard.
If you spin a 2-ply yarn, measure the length after you have plied, round up to the nearest yard, and multiply the yardage by 3. Pro-Tip: If you’re comfortable plying, this is a good way to get extra credit since plying takes less time than spinning once you’re used to doing it.
If you spin a 3-ply, 4-ply, or 10-ply yarn, you’ll measure the final yardage and round up to the nearest yard and then multiple that number by the number of plies plus one more for plying.
If you spin a cabled yarn and ply it more than once, you can take the plying credit up to two times but no more.
If you chain-ply your yarn, multiply your final plied yardage by 4 to get the total. N.B. This is an exception to the Length X Yards x (Number of times through the orifice) rule to account for the extra ply and the fact that the plied yarn is approximately 1/3rd the length of the original unplied singles.
If you Andean ply or ply from a center-pull bobbin, multiply your final plied yardage by 3 to get the total. N.B. This too is an exception to the Length X Yards x (Number of times through the orifice) rule since the yarn only passes through the orifice twice.
If you corespin and also spin the core yourself during the contest it counts as two times the length.
If you are spinning coreless corespinning where you are spinning the core and the wrapper at the same time and the yarn only goes through the orifice once, it counts as one times the length.

Examples with Commercial Elements (New as of 2021)

If you corespin and use a commercial core it counts as one times the length.
If you create a 2-ply yarn but use one commercial ply, it counts as one time the length, and you do not receive the plying credit.
If you create a 3-ply yarn but use one commercial ply and 2 plies that you spin, it counts as 2x the length plus the plying credit, so a total of 3x the length.
If you create a singles yarn and use a commercial autowrap thread, it counts as 1x the length.
If you corespin with a commercial core and an autowrap, it still counts as 1x the length.
If you spin a cabled yarn (two 2-ply yarns plied together) and you use a commercial ply in each 2-ply yarn and then ply them together, it counts as 1x the length for each 2-ply yarn plus 1 plying credit, so a total of 3x the length.
If you spin a cabled yarn and use a commercial ply in one of the 2-ply yarns and then ply them together, it counts as 2x the length plus the plying credit for the 2-ply with no commercial yarn and 1x the length without the plying credit for the 2-ply with commercial yarn plus the plying credit for plying the two 2-plies together, so that’s a total of 5x the length.

Submitting Your Yardage Totals and Photos

The deadline to submit your yardage and your the photo of everything you spun during the competition week is February 28th. Please submit the following to your team captain by that date according to your team captain’s instructions:

Your total yardage spun during the competition week per the How to Count Your Yardage information above.
All the types of tools you actually ended up using during the competition (spindle, spinning wheel, and/or e-spinner).
A photo of all the yarn you spun during the week. Please rename the photo as follows: Team Name-Your Name-Spun. Please limit the file size to 3 MB if possible.

Each captain is responsible for filling out the Submission Form for Team Totals with the information above by midnight Pacific Daylight Savings Time on February 29th.

Submitting Photos for the Creative Contests

Any team member is welcome to participate in the Most Beautiful Skein contest, the Wildest Art Yarn contest, or both. However, it is optional. This year for the first time, you won’t be uploading your Must Beautiful Skein and Wildest Art Yarn Skein photos to our website instead of to your team captain. We’ll be opening up the form for that during the competition week.

When it comes time to do so, you will have the opportunity to upload one photo for the Most Beautiful Skein and one for the Wildest Art Yarn Skein. No collages please.

If you choose to enter the Most Beautiful Skein competition, please submit a single jpg, gif, or png file of your favorite skein for the Most Beautiful Skein competition. Please rename the photo as follows: Team Name-Your Name-Beautiful, so if your team name is Team Spinning Dance and your name is Jane Doe, the file should be called SpinningDance-JaneDoe-Beautiful. Also, please limit the file size to 3 MB if possible.
If you choose to enter the Wildest Art Yarn Skein competition, please submit a single jpg, gif, or png file of your favorite skein for the Wildest Art Yarn Skein competition. Please rename the photo as follows: Team Name-Your Name-Wildest, so if your team name is Team Spinning Dance and your name is Jane Doe, the file should be called SpinningDance-JaneDoe-Wildest. Also, please limit the file size to 3 MB if possible.

All team members will then be given the opportunity to vote on their favorite three skeins for each category.

After that, we will endeavor to announce the winners of each award within one week–hopefully less if all goes well. Please be patient as we manually spot check and verify yardages during this process to ensure the accuracy of the results.

Happy spinning!