Jacey Faulkner

Spinzilla — Team PLY!

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Spinzilla — there are a whopping 56 teams of awesomeness this year and we’re one of them! Each team is allowed 25 spinners and those spinners spin spin spin from Oct 6-11th. Then all the yardage is counted up and whichever team has more — wins!  Of course it does other things too, good things — promotes spinning, encourages learning, facilitates experimentation, grows community — but also there is winning involved! WINNING!

WINNING!

PLY wants to win.  I think PLY can win.  Don’t you?  We’ve got some amazing spinners all slated to sign up to be on the team and I can’t wait!  I’ve got big plans for these spinners, lots of motivation and challenges and prizes!  And if we win, I mean, when we win, something awesome!

Sign ups start at 10am tomorrow!  Do you want to be on the team?  Can you commit to spinning like the dickens?  We don’t ask for bloody fingertips but some crossed eyes would be okay.

http://www.tnna.org/event/SpinzillaTeamSpinnerRegistration

xo,

jacey

Jacey Faulkner

Maureen Burns, come on down!

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Using a random number generator  and the comments on the last blog post, it turns out that luck was on the side of Maureen Brown tonight!  She’s our fiber winner!  Shipping out to her is 6 ounces of Spunky Eclectic’s Golddigger in merino/linen!

Stay tuned, we have the fiber from Anne Podlesak’s Brighton top to give away too!  Plus lots of other goodies.

And if you haven’t noticed that we now have cute little web ads over there  ————————->

Notice, darn it!  Do you want one?  They’re super adorable and very affordable!  If you don’t want one, consider supporting the companies that do advertise with us (just make sure you do it via the ad or they won’t know that their ad is working! Without them we couldn’t make PLY, plus they make cool stuff.

xo,

jacey

 

Jacey Faulkner

Fiber give-a-way — Elektron scarf!

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I know that Bernadette, PLY’s photographer and my very best friend, is catch-your-breath-fall-down gorgeous (not to mention talented). It’s also true that anything, absolutely anything, would look beautiful on her. But given all of that, the Elektron scarf,  by Kristy Howell from issue #4, really is stunning.

howell3There’s something about the delicate lace, the slightly rustic character of the fiber (60% merino wool/ 40%flax), and the complex goldnenrod color, when combined, just shines.

Well guess what I have in my hot little hand?  Yep, enough of that exact fiber from Spunky Eclectic’s in gold digger — to spin and knit your very own Elektron.  Would you like it?  You would?  I thought so.  I feel like I know you so well.  And you know me right?  You know that I’d like to give it to you.  All of you.  But since I have just enough for one project, I’ve got an idea.

I need something from you.  I’m collecting spinning snapshots for a very special project in our next issue — the community issue.  I need lots.  Lots and lots.  Like hundreds!  So if you send me a digital snapshot of yourself or a friend/friends spinning (please make the subject of the e-mail snapshot) and then leave a comment on the blog saying you sent it and that you’re okay with us publishing it — you’ll be entered in our random drawing!

Don’t worry about it being the best shot ever, it’ll be very very small so nobody will notice if your yarn isn’t even or if you don’t have your good bra on.  However, I do need it to be of people spinning!

Okay?  Sound good?  Let’s do it!

Step 1. send a photo of yourself spinning  to Jacey (with snapshot as the subject of your email).

Step 2. comment on this blog post  that you sent me the snapshot.

Step 3. On Friday, July 11th, I’ll announce the winner and ship out the fiber!  

love,

jacey

Jacey Faulkner

We made a mistake in Twist

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We are sad to announce (here and on the Twist issue’s extra page) that we made a mistake. A big mistake.  Through no fault of the author, in the issue about twist, in the photos in article about measuring twist angle —  we totally did it wrong.

thats0degrees

See, you’re supposed to line your yarn up with 0 (zero) degrees. As you can see in the magazine on the paper twist guide behind the purple one, 0 (zero) degrees is often in the middle of the twist guide. But not always.  On this purple one, it’s the horizontal line at the bottom.  And that’s where our trouble began.

notthat

Yep, we lined up our yarn with the mid-line. In this case, the midline is 90 degrees!  Not 0 (zero)! Which made the twist angle we reported INSANE! Seriously, a 75 degree angle of twist – that’d be something wouldn’t it?  Fishing line socks, anyone — they exfoliate and never wear out!

thisway

Above is how, for this particular twist gauge, we should have aligned the yarn, along the bottom, like a yarny horizon.  But we didn’t do it that way and we’re very very sorry.

sorry