How It Works

Spin Together is about the joy of spinning and the opportunity to share that joy with other spinners. It’s also a fun competition that will take place beginning at noon on February 22, 2025, and ending at noon on March 1, 2025. It will begin and end at noon your time wherever you are. It all takes place online, and you can participate from anywhere in the world.

This page constitutes the official rules. Void where prohibited.

Competition Overview

We are making some big changes this year! We want to encourage you to spin in any way that you enjoy, and we want to decrease your stress level rather than increase it. With those goals in mind, we are doing away with the yardage contests altogether for 2025. Instead, we will have seven different creative categories. We feel this encompasses the joy of spinning more than the stress of trying to spin as much as humanly possible in a week. We hope that every spinner will find at least one category that fits their spinning goals and preferences.

All the Dates for 2025

Here are all the dates related to the 2025 Spin Together Competition in one place:

  • January 3rd to January 21st – Captains can create their teams
  • January 28th to February 15th – Spinners can join teams
  • February 22nd – March 1st – Competition Takes Place starting Saturday at noon and ending Saturday at noon wherever you are in the world
  • March 7th – Deadline to upload photos to Facebook albums
  • March 8th – March 14th – All members of the Spin Together Facebook group can vote for their top three favorites in each category
  • March 21st – Winners for each category will be announced
  • March 31st – Gift cards will be sent to each winner by email

Contest Categories

  1. Most Beautiful Skein – The skein that just takes your breath away! This skein needs to be a minimum of 100 grams. The entry photo should include the whole skein.
  2. Wildest Skein – Go crazy! Must be a minimum 100 gram skein. The entry photo should include the whole skein.
  3. Most Complex Skein – Did you spin an 8-ply cabled boucle? Enter it here! We want to see it! Minimum 100 gram skein. This category is all about the technical side of spinning. The entry photo should include a close-up of the skein so the construction can be seen.
  4. Finest Lace Skein – For those who feel frog hair isn’t fine enough. Skeins must be a minimum of 20 grams, have at least 2 plies, and be over 24 wraps per inch. The entry photo should include a close-up of the yarn wrapped over a ruler or wraps per inch tool to show the number of wraps per inch, and the number of wraps per inch must be listed in the description as well. The wraps should be as close together as possible without overlapping each other. Unlike all the other categories, this one will not be voted on. Instead, the winners will be the ones with the highest wraps per inch. If your tools are in centimeters, please translate them to inches for us in the description.
  5. Most Evenly Spun Skein – For those who love to spin perfectly even yarn. This may be a singles or plied yarn. Skein must be 100 grams or more. The entry photo should include the whole skein.
  6. Project Spin – For those who spin for a purpose. Giant project or small, this is your category. Rather than a single skein, this contest is for three or more coordinating skeins. Each skein must be 100 grams or more. The entry photo should include all the skeins in the project.
  7. Novice Spinner Skein – Anything goes! This is for spinners who began spinning within the last year. To be exact, that means you picked up you first spindle, spinning wheel, or e-spinner after February 22, 2024. Skeins can be singles or any number of plies. The entry photo should include the whole skein, and the skein must be 50 grams or more.

Rules for the Competition

  1. Each skein must be started and finished during Spin Together Week.
  2. Each skein can only be entered in one category.
  3. Each spinner may only enter one skein per category.
  4. Entries for each category may utilize commercial cores and add-ins if desired; however, at least one ply must be spun during the competition week, and all plying must be done during the competition week.
  5. Each photo is the responsibility of the spinner to take and upload to the correct album in the Spin Together Facebook group; however, the team captain can assist them with uploading the photo if needed. Photos may be rejected at the discretion of the organizers.
  6. Along with the photo, each spinner must include the weight of the finished skein and the date it was started and completed. Spinners are also encouraged to include information such as the fibers used, where the fibers came from, techniques used in spinning, yardage, and plans for use.
  7. If a spinner’s equipment does not allow the spinner to make a single skein that meets the weight requirements for a given contest category, the spinner can choose to spin multiple small skeins that use the same fiber and spinning techniques and come to the required weight altogether. In that case, the photograph should include all the small skeins together as a single entry.
  8. All members of the Spin Together Facebook group are eligible to vote for the winners of each contest category (with the exception of the Finest Lace Category). Voting for the winners will be done via likes or loves on Facebook.
  9. Voting will only begin after all uploads are complete so voters can choose from all the skeins and not just some of them.
  10. Each voter can like or love up to three yarn entries per category/album.
  11. The organizers may ask for verification of the weight of a skein or other information if needed.
  12. We expect all team members and Facebook group members to treat one another with respect. The organizers reserve the right to remove any team member or Facebook group member from the competition and/or Facebook group for treating others in a disrespectful manner based solely on our discretion.

Prizes

The Spin Together organizers will be providing gift cards for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place for each of the categories listed above. Prize amounts are dependent on registrations.

Also, team captains are responsible for providing at least 2 prizes to their team members based on skill-based team challenges they design for their own teams.

Creating a Team

Anyone can create a team, but most teams are created by brick-and-mortar yarn shops, online yarn and fiber 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.

There is no cost to create a team, and team captains don’t have to pay the $15 sign-up fee. However, they have some pretty big responsibilities, including running their own in-team contests. You can learn more about creating a team on the Create a Team page.

Joining a Team

You will be able to join the team of your choice beginning on January 28, 2025, and ending on February 14, 2025 on the Join a Team page right here.

It’s a good idea to sign up early if you can to enjoy the camaraderie leading up to the competition. Every spinner will choose a team to join. The fee to sign up will be $15. If that is not within your means, we have a few scholarships. Just email us at spin2gether {at} gmail so we can help you out. In addition to the $15 sign-up fee, we ask that you 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, and they are working hard in the areas affected by the recent hurricanes in the southeastern US right now.

Which Team to Join

You are welcome to choose any team you like, but it makes sense to choose one that you have some connection to if possible. A guild that you are part of or a yarn shop you love would be natural choices. If no such team exists, that’s okay. You can choose anyone that still has spaces.

In the weeks leading up to the competition, you’ll have the opportunity to get to know your fellow teammates through the Facebook 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, so you’ll want to be sure to join that. That’s the main hub for all the news and fun pertaining to Spin Together.

FAQS

Q: Who can participate?
A: Anyone age 18 or above can take part so long as the laws of their country do not prohibit doing so in any way.

Q: Can I have someone help me during the competition week?
A: You are welcome to have someone help with fiber preparation and winding off bobbins. However, you must personally do all of the spinning and plying yourself.

Q: I use spindles, spinning wheels, or e-spinners that can’t make 50 gram or 100 gram skeins all at once. Can I combine multiple skeins to equal the 50 gram or 100 gram requirement for the different categories?
A: Absolutely! Just be sure to photograph the skeins altogether.


Q: What happens if I sign up to spin on a team and then something comes up?
A: If you sign up and then find you are unable to take part in the competition for any reason, please email us at spin2gether {at} gmail.com and let us know that you need to cancel. Be sure to include your full name and the team you joined. So long as you cancel before the competition begins, we will cancel your team spot and refund your registration fee. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to do this once the competition begins, and teams cannot add new members after the competition has begun even if someone has to drop out, but please let your team captain know.

Q: What should I do while waiting for Spin Together week?
A: We recommend that you spin a little each day or as often as you can. You might also watch some YouTube videos on spinning techniques you would like to learn. There’s always more to learn!

We also recommend that you take a look at the different contest categories above and decide which ones you are interested in entering. Then start making a plan for what fiber you want to use and how you want to spin it for those categories. You can also work backwards and decide what you want to make from the yarn you spin and plan to spin yarn that will work for your goals.

In the month before Spin Together, it’s a good idea to make sure your equipment is in good working order. In the weeks right before Spin Together week, we recommend spending some time prepping your fiber and clearing your bobbins.

Q: Does it matter whether I’m spinning on a spindle, a spinning wheel, or an e-spinner?
Not any more. Since there are no yardage contests, it doesn’t really matter what you’re spinning on–just so long as you enjoy it. 🙂

Q: Can you describe the changes between this year and previous years?
A: There are quite a few changes this time around based on what the organizers have learned from previous years. First, we decided to focus on the art of spinning rather than yardage for the reasons mentioned above. Second, we decided that the groups will be all be on Facebook instead of some on Facebook and some on Ravelry. We apologize for the inconvenience this causes for some, but in past years, the vast majority of activity took place on Facebook, and the team members on Ravelry were not able to take part in the fun so much. Third, the team captains will be running some smaller skill-based contests within their teams. While the “big” competition won’t include yardage, the team captains can opt to include yardage contests if they like. Fourth, the prizes for the competition overall will all be gift cards coming from the organizers of Spin Together. This will make the process of getting all the prizes out a lot simpler and free of problems. Fifth, we realized that without the yardage contests, there was no need to differentiate based on spinning equipment.

Q: I have a question you haven’t answered. How can I ask it?
A: The best place to ask is in the Facebook group if you don’t find your answer, feel free to email us at spin2gether {at} gmail.com.