Spinzilla team roster: Christina Bowers

plycuriousName: Christina

Spinning nickname: Rogue of Wool

years spinning: 15

Location: Denver, CO on my bike or wheel or, you know, in bed sometimes.

Spinning tool of choice for spinzilla: trusty old Ashford Traveller, for the gypsy girl

Favorite weight of yarn: I prefer any weight depending on the style of yarn, but comfort knitting is usually sport or dk

Favorite fiber for fast spinning: Shetland! It flies along with fast spinning.

Favorite treat to eat while spinning: Anything? Cookies are nice when you can get them, but mostly I snack on fresh fruit.

Project you’ll be spinning for: mostly for my shop, but I’d love to spin another sweaters quantity.

Personal Spinzilla goal: 12,000! I spun just under 9,000 last year and I think pushing it will be a breeze since I’ll be leaving plying for After this year. Maybe I’ll spin more.

Personal bio: I enjoy spinning a variety of traditional and art yarns as well as dyeing and preparing my own fiber (purchased, not raised myself – apartment!) for spinning. I recently opened an Etsy shop called PlyCurious where I sell my custom luxury handspun yarns. I’ve taught spinning and knitting in small groups and one-on-one for years (ultimate focus), but now I want to focus on creating a sustainable and supportive business around my handspun yarn.

I enjoy many other activities aside from spinning. I’ve been an avid knitter for as long as I’ve been spinning and enjoy spinning yarn for a project, then designing the project as I go for a custom, one of a kind item! I love to crochet and sew as well, but my heart lies with wool. I dabble in various other crafts for fun or practical purposes.

I’m a fast, dare devil, fixed gear cyclist (probably one of the few that follow traffic laws…) and I love traversing the trails in Colorado, where I currently make my home. I was in a stable, loving relationship for 18 years before I met my boyfriend, Jesse, but my cat likes him too, so we all live together now in a big happy family. I love reading books (audio cds are the spinners companion), listening to music, cycling, swimming in the ocean, and cooking amazing, healthy meals. Also, eating cookies.

Am I Write?

 

In 2008 I wrote my first article that ever got published. It was for KnittySpin and it was about scouring and spinning Cormo. Not a bad article and I got some good feedback so I decided to carry on. I proposed articles for a couple of other spinning magazines, both in print and electronic. Some of them got accepted which was good for my ego.

Over time I proposed more things to magazines and of course there were a couple of book proposals. Of course, it goes without saying that I love writing for Ply.

20140803_080447

I learned some things about proposals over time. The first ones were just a few sentences describing as well as I could. Luckily, a few used words that got my message across. Some of the ones I thought were great ideas were turned down. I suspect that sometimes my idea just didn’t fit or there was someone else who got chosen who proposed the same thing or sometimes I didn’t communicate the idea that was in my brain very well.

So, I’d like to tell you a few things that I now do in just about every proposal to write an article. I’m not saying I get a yes every time but I do get a yes more often than I did even up to 2 years ago.

1. Know the magazine you are proposing to. Think about who their audience is.

2. Make sure you are proposing an article that will fit the particular issue you are proposing for.

3. Use details. talk about what point of view you will be coming from. Be specific about what things you will include in your article.

4. Sometimes it helps to include an outline. When you actually write the article, things may switch around a bit but an outline is a great communicator.

5. Say how many words or pages you think you’ll need to clearly explain what you are writing about.

6. Include a photo or two if you’ve done this technique or made this thing before. They don’t have to be photos of any samples you send for photography in the end but, as we all know, a picture is worth a thousand words.

This all may seem like a lot of work before you even get a yes but in the end it is so worth it.

 

Spinzilla team roster: Kat Christensen

KatName: Kat

Spinning nickname: AsKatKnits (and spins)

years spinning: ohmigosh – since 2007! How time flies when you are having fun!

Location: Pittsburgh PA

Spinning tool of choice for spinzilla: Schacht Matchless

Favorite weight of yarn: Light fingering, but always working towards my penultimate yarn weight, a lovely gossamer lace weight.

Favorite fiber for fast spinning: Something long draw… I am not super fast but I hope to learn some tricks to gain speed before Spinzilla starts!

Favorite treat to eat while spinning: Eat?  Who has time to eat?? However, since beer is a food group – I love a good Guinness!

Project you’ll be spinning for: Oh my, where is my list? Hedgehog Fibers just released a new pattern – Lucidity – so that has quickly moved to the list. I also want to spin to knit Hitoftude. I just ordered some fiber from Spunky Eclectic to spin Helmi, and if I can really rock it out, I would love to start spinning for a Lush Cardigan.

Personal Spinzilla goal: To spin 3 lbs of fiber – a lofty goal, but I am going to try!

Personal bio:  I have been autographed by Abby Franquemont, I have laughed and laughed with Jillian, but the best ever was spending the night with Beth Smith in her yarn shop. Okay, on a serious note, I absolutely love wool – spring, summer, winter, or fall. It is my go to fiber for all times. I am wildly liberal and an NPR junkie. I love to cook and garden. However, housekeeping is the bane of my existance. I am dipping my toes in teaching some beginning spinning classes at my LYS. I am blessed to be able to work from home. I have 3 grown children and one small brown dog – Sherman the Pug. He is blissfully content to sit with me whether I knit or spin. Life is indeed very good.

Let the games begin because my Netflix queue is full and I am ready to spin!

Spinzilla team roster: Lydia Martin

lydiaSpinzilla: PLY Magazine Team Roster — Lydia Martin

Spinning nickname: Dream Catcher

years spinning: One… and growing

Location: Fort Collins

Spinning tool of choice for spinzilla: Top Gun Soundtrack

Favorite weight of yarn: The one that is lightest on my pocketbook

Favorite fiber for fast spinning: Whatever is prepped into easy to grab rolags

Favorite treat to drink while spinning: Tall Dark Stouts

Project you’ll be spinning for: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/the-age-of-brass-and-steam-kerchief and http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/bloomsbury-7 

Personal Spinzilla goal: Avoid a sore bum and impress Kenny Loggins as I treadle into the “Danger Zone”

Personal bio:  I’m a Rocky Mountain native, wife, mama to two wee princesses, artist, tea drinker, moon gazer, aspiring bird identifier, trail blazer, nature devotee and lover of creativity.

I’m a self-taught knitter who ‘accidentally’ stumbled into spinning when I found two raw packaged fleeces (purchased in New Zealand eons ago) in my neighbors garbage pile on trash day. (I just may, or may not, be an occasional dumpster diver… don’t judge!) Determined to build my yarn stash, I found a spinning class at my LYS. From that point on I was in love! It is now a common occurrence that I will go to bed dreaming of spinning and fiber.

How to run a magazine pt. 3

And now it’s time for another “what Jacey doing this week” post.  I hope you don’t get tired of reading these.  I was just telling Jillian this morning, at the board meeting, that writing them is pretty helpful to me.  Almost like a huge data dump of everything I have to do for the week, helps me get a handle on what needs to be done.

Okay, first the stage setting – We are at the very very end of the Autumn 2014 issue cycle, the middle of the Winter 2014 issue cycle, and the very beginning of the Summer 2015 issue.

First, the Autumn 2014 issue – community.  Kitten is moving this month so he is running a bit behind on layout so instead of having it all to me and me working on it, he’s staying up late and sending me things each day.  It’ll work out the same, but harder for him, I think.

He sends me the magazine in low-res pdfs, 20 pages at a time.  I read through every page, look at every ad, every graphic, everything, and keep notes on anything I see that needs to be changed.  Often it’s a “two” into a “2”, sometimes it’s a misspelling (this time it was “performance” instead of “performance”), and occasionally it’s a wrong caption (Deb will be much happier if we don’t call her fuzzy woolen sample a “slick woolen example”) or photos in the wrong order, and every once in a while it’s just that I want an ad switched with another ad.

I’d like to take this chance to publically say that when you see “fiber” spelled “fibre”, we didn’t miss that, we left it.  We like to preserve regional spellings.  If a Canadian writes the article, fibre will have lustre.  If an American writes it, fiber will have luster.  It appears that this makes some people see red but it’s just the way we roll.

So that’s what I’m doing right now, fine-tooth-combing the PDFs.  After I send him my notes, he’ll fix any mistakes that are actually mistakes and uploads the files to the printer where I’ll look at them via their pre-press portal.  This is super cool as it looks just like the magazine and if I’m feeling shaky about an issue, this step always eases my worries and I start getting excited.  I look over everything once more and then give an ok or a no-kay.  If it’s a no-kay, Kitten fixes the issue and re-uploads the troublesome pages.

Then it goes to press.

That’ll happen this week.

On Friday Levi will send the updated mailing list to the printer and if the name isn’t on that list, they don’t get a copy.  Which reminds me, that’s the other thing I have to do, e-mail everyone that needs to but has yet to, resubscribe.  We do that by comparing the e-mail addresses on the Autumn 2013 mailing list with the e-mail addresses on the Autumn 2014 mailing list.  Not the slickest way, I’m sure, but it gets the job done.

Once that’s done, that issue drops off my cycle list.  Shew.  It’s always a relief.  By September 10th, it’ll ship to readers.

The middle of the winter 2014 cycle is a bit easier.  I just got back the articles from Levi (remember, I edit them, sent them to him, he edits them and sends them back).  I look over them one more time and by the end of the week will send them all to Kitten.

Very Beginning of the Summer 2014 cycle means that between today and tomorrow I’ve got to e-mail everyone about their Fine Issue proposals.  I’ve mostly got it planned out but there’s still a bit of work to do on it.  I know all the articles but have to figure out the word counts and the budget.  We  have space for 35,000 words in each issue, that’s assuming we use roughly the same amount of photos and our ads are all full.  Once I gave Kitten 49,000 words, 50% more than would fit.  I’ve gotten better at planning but it’s always tricky.

In the misc. category, I’ve gotta get the website ads ready to go live in 10 days and get the website all prepped for the issue switch over.  Thankfully, Jessica, who built the website, is taking on this job, I just have to get her the materials.

Of course there’s always e-mails and packing magazines for LYSs and back orders.

Oh, and I have to hurry and find a photo of a Shetland sheep!  It’s an emergency!

xo,

jacey

Reprinting Color and Woolen!

If you’re one of the PLY readers that missed out on issue #2 and #3 (Color and Woolen), guess what?  We are reprinting!  However, since we are a small operation, we don’t have green enough just sitting around, so we’re going to have to do what we did for the Summer 2013 (#1, first).

Here’s how it works.  If you don’t have the issue but you want it, you order it.  I take your money but don’t send you anything. Not for a while anyway.  I have to wait until we have enough orders to cover a print run.  For the #1 issue, I said it could take anywhere from 2 months to 12 months.  It made it in 6 months and the reprint went out last month.

I suspect it’ll take about the same time for #2 and #3, but it could take longer.  Again, I’ll print by July 2015 if we haven’t made the numbers yet, even if I have to sell handspun on the street!

It’s been up for 2 weeks and we’re 10% there, so that’s pretty promising.

If you’re torn about the issues, don’t be, they’re both really good.  Woolen is one of my favorites (mostly because I think it has changed the most people’s spinning) and Color is one of the most beautiful issues (not just because my lovely mom is in it).

If you want to help us get it back in stock faster, order!  Tell your friends!

We have a winner!

Thanks everyone, for participating!  And after using this random number generator, we have a winner! Kimberly Burnett-Dean of the great state of Virginia (which I hear is for lovers).  I’ll be sending the fiber out to her this week.

 

Thanks to Anne Podlesak for the pattern and the Wooly Wonka Fibers  fiber.

 

Stay tuned for more of these!  Every issue has 2-4 projects and I plan on giving away the fiber that the spinner/designer uses for as many of those as I can.  So if you really like a design and wish you could make it out of the same fiber, well, you could actually go to the indie-shop and purchase it, but if not, you can win it here!

 

love,

jacey

 

Learning to make a magazine pt.2

How about another  installment of learning to make a magazine?

First to set the stage —  here’s where we are in the grand scheme of cycles and status:

End of the Autumn 2014 cycle

Middle of the Winter 2014 cycle

Planning of the Summer 2015 cycle

That sounds easy enough, right?  Let’s look closer, things are always more difficult and dirty when you look closer and making a magazine is no exception, my spinnerly friends.

End of Autumn 2014 cycle —  Kitten sends me PDF of the final design and layout and I review them.  However, he’s a bit behind (this sometimes happens where one of us is a bit behind, we always catch up) so I don’t have any to review this week.  Which is actually not a bad thing for me since much of my time needs to be spent planning, and spinning samples for, my Craftsy class.  Yes, folks, I’m doing a craftsy class. Very excited! Amy King just did one (and it’s great) and if there’s anything else in this world I want to be, it’s Amy King!

Middle of Winter 2014 cycle — there’s more work here for me, mainly, finishing all the first edits and re-orgs or author’s articles.  There are still 2 articles out with the authors (extended deadlines) but everything else is in and I’ve gone over all of it once.  Now I’m in the middle of going over it again so that I can make sure there’s not too much overlap, repeating of information and so on.  Again, with the themed issues,  it’s more of a threat than not.  I’ve already got most of these done and by the end of the week I’ll send them all to Levi for a 2nd round of editing.

I just sent the Winter 2014 patterns to Amy P,  our tech editor.  Except that we have a inkle weaving project and so I’m on the hunt for a inkle weaver for a little tech editing.  It’s small and simple so if you have experience, let me know!

Planning of the Summer 2015 cycle: The best part of my week is the planning of the Summer 2015 issue.  We got so many fantastic proposals and it’s my job to sort through them.  I told you before that I’ve got a folders in my mail client, right?  Under Summer 2015 there’s Yes, No, and Maybe.  In my Yes there’s 5, in No (which later I will transfer to my trello board in case we can use them elsewhere) there’s 39, and in Maybe there’s 56!  It’s a lot to go through but building the issues like this is something I really enjoy.

I used to use a giant sheet of butcher paper but since I discovered Trello, I do it there.  I have several things I look for when I first start this job. I have to make sure that there’s a great intro article, something introducing the topic, broad and focused (it’s a thing, really).  There’s not one in the proposals this time so I have to go hunt for one.  I’ve already put out an e-mail to who I’d like to write it, negotiating with her now.  I hope she consents, if so, it’ll be a great opener.

After finding that article, I try to make sure there’s a good mix of what I label light, medium, and heavy.  That refers to the content and how much brain power it takes to make it through the articles.  Deb Robson and Diane Palme are examples of heavy!  Smarty ladies, they are!  But it’s important to have a mix, take the reader on a journey they’re going to enjoy, not just fill it with heavy, dense facts.  I try for 40% heavy, 40% medium, and 20% light. Our regular features take care of some of that, you know, stuff like fiber study is usually heavy while guilded, who’s that spinner, and follow the fiber are usually light, and spin it’s are often medium.  The articles that don’t fit into those categories — the extras — are the ones that I have to make sure have a good balance and cover everything the issue should cover.

So after considering the intro article, and a good mix of article weights, I also consider authors.  I like to have a mix of those, as well.  I try to make sure we have at least 4 new authors in each issue.  There can be more, but I make sure there’s no less!  It’s important to me that we don’t just hear the same voices, that we involve the community, that we recognize that we are more than just our known teachers.

Finally I consider word count.  We have space for about 37,000 words in each issue but I probably won’t get to word count this week so we’ll skip talking about that for now.

It’s interesting, and I’ll tell this to the spinners I have to send the “thanks but no thanks” email to – sometimes a really great article doesn’t get in because it doesn’t work with the rest of the issue.  It could be fantastic but if there’s a gap in the issue and it doesn’t fill it, or if it’s too heavy or long or whatever, and I can’t make it work, I have to take the article that is lighter or shorter and gives the issue the roundness it needs.  It’s probably the hardest (and most interesting) part of my job.  Sometimes I am very happy with the results.  For instance, I think the Silk and Twist issues both are very full and round and diverse.  I don’t think the First issue or the Color issue  are as much, though I think the stuff in there is wonderful. That early in the process I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing yet and didn’t know how to really put together an issue. The winter issue is better but not quite as finished as the last two.  That just means I’m getting better at it, which is good. Hopefully I’ll just keep getting better at it!

But this week I’ll just decide on the articles and build my trello board.  My next work week I’ll deal with word counts, contracts, e-mailing authors, and all the in-house stuff. I’ll tell you about it as it comes.

And that’s what the editor-in-chief is doing this week.

But there’s more!  Here’s the less interesting stuff, in list form so I don’t lose you completely.

 

  • Stuff backorders and mail them (we got pre-paid envelopes so it’s a bit faster now!)
  • Resend copies of the magazine that got lost in the mail.
  • Answer e-mails.
  • Sell website ads for September!  Wanna buy one?  Only $15!
  • E-mail all the people that have a credit card on file with us (LYS and advertisers) because the recent Quickbooks update erased that info and I need to re-input it.
  • Sell the rest of the Winter 2014 issue ads there’s still some of every size except full page.
  • Send in payroll taxes to the government.  Government, if you’re reading this, thanks for understanding that I’m late, I’m sure you can see why, right? It’s busy up in here.
  • Secure a time and location for Winter shoot. It’s gotta be soon and it’s gotta be wintery!
  • The winter issue has a glaring gap so I need to whip up a short little article on worsted joins.
  • Start thinking about our Spinzilla team!
  • E-mail the LYSs and advertisers that are behind in paying us.  I’m reading (listening to on Audible while I work out at the gym) Gold Finch right now and there’s a whole section where he’s in Las Vegas with a gambling dad.  Me collecting from those that owe the magazine will be NOTHING like what happens in the book, I promise.  It mostly includes me saying “please”.

So that’s my work week.  What’s yours like?

ps.  if anyone wants to make me a graphic for this series (you can see the terrible one I made at the top of the page), I’m sure we could trade something good for it.  Please?

xo,

jacey

Sweater detail

Brighton top fiber give-a-way!

Man alive, did you just love Anne Podlesak’s new design in the Twist issue of PLY?  I adore it.  I also adore the woman that modeled it for us.  So wonderful.  We were just out shooting and out runs this woman with my book in hand asking me to sign it, saying she’d just taken a class with Lexi Boeger (Pluckyfluff), and that she absolutely loved spinning!  Of course we asked her to model and of course she was stunning.

Anne Podlesak used energized singles to create a ziggity-zag edge and very cool slanting stripes and now you can use the same exact fiber and create your own — merino/bamboo blend (60/40) in cool blues from Wooly Wonka Fibers!

Brighton sweater front

If you want to win this fiber (enough to do the exact sweater Marilou is wearing, here’s what you have to do — leave a short (or long) (or really long) review of the issue here  for the twist issue of PLY.  Just click on the review tab under the add to cart button.  Be honest, the winner will be chosen at random, not for the content of the review (though if your content contains links to diet sites, fake fancy handbags, or sites with more than one naked person, chances are  you won’t win).  Sound good?  If you’ve already reviewed it, you’re entered!

I’ll pick and announce the winner on Monday, the 11th (one solid week).

Go!

xo,

jacey

 

ps.  it’s okay if you put your review here too, but make sure you put it here!