Spinning Event Benefits Mentoring Program

Last year was the first for Spinzilla, a weeklong spinning competition that encourages groups and individuals to make as much yarn as they can to claim bragging rights (as well as a trophy and gift certificates for team members).

Even though the event isn’t until October 6-12, organizers are already getting people excited about this year’s competition.

Registration is now open for teams through July 14, and spinners can register — either as part of a team or as rogue spinners — beginning August 4. Teams host meetups and their total yardage is compiled together for the competition.

The winning team last year was Fancy Tiger Crafts, which spun almost 95,000 yards (or 54 miles!) of yarn during the week. In all, more than 1.3 million yards of yarn were spun during the week.

But more than just a fun event highlighting spinning, Spinzilla is also a fundraiser. The $10 entry fee goes to the Needle Arts Mentoring Program, which provides resources to people who want to teach knitting, crochet, needlepoint or spinning to groups of kids. In all the event raised almost $6,000 last year, which has that group energized to double the number of kids it reaches.

Are you a spinner? Would you take part in an event like this? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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A Terry’s Chocolate Orange is a classic Christmas gift in the UK that has become more popular in America as well. And if you know knitters, you know they’re going to cover something in knitting if they can, so there are lots of different Christmas themed chocolate orange knitting patterns out there (which you could use for an actual orange as well if that’s in your traditions).

Chocolate orange covers seem to be one of those projects where a designer makes a lot of variations on the theme, so we’ll just touch on a few here but you can further explore the designer’s works if you like what you see.

Wild Welsh Knitting has a cute little set of orange covers that look like little drawstring bags. There’s a snowman, a Christmas tree and a robing, and they are all worked in DK weight yarn. This designer has lots of cute little Christmas projects, not just for oranges.

Wendy Morgan has a bunch of chocolate orange cover knitting patterns, not just for Christmas, but for our purposes I wanted to point out the set that includes a Santa, reindeer and Christmas pudding. It’s available on Ravelry, and the pieces are worked flat using DK weight yarn.

Rebecca Roberts is another designer on Ravelry who does a bunch of Christmas chocolate orange cover knitting patterns, but I wanted to share this post box one because I think it’s really cute and not a design I’ve seen from others. It has a little bird on top and you could change up the colors to make it a TARDIS (yes I know that’s a phone box, not a mail box, but still) if you wanted.

Made by Marianna has a great set of her Christmas orange cover knitting patterns available on Etsy if you want to make a bunch of different designs. This collection includes six patterns: a Christmas pudding, Santa hat, snowman, Christmas trees, elf hat and Santa’s belt. The Christmas tree is shown above. All of the patterns use DK yarn.

Secret Garden England has a bunch of cute holiday patterns, too, but if you’re stitching for someone who doesn’t have a lot of Christmas cheer, you’ll want to make this Grinch one. The details are so cute, and while you’ll need more supplies to add all those things, it’s well worth the effort!

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