Jillian’s Spinning: Getting Through a Big Spinning Project

It’s Fall and the spinning is easy. I want to spin all of the time and knit simultaneously these days. I’m finishing my samples for my book’s photo shoot which is this week. I have more to do than I thought because while I have a lot of teaching samples, some of them are a little worse for wear after traveling around the country and being petted while I teach, so I have a few respins to do. I am resisting the urge to spin a new sample for every single photo in the book, it’s hard but I am doing my best to be strong.

I am spinning up to four hours a day along with my regular computer work and have come up with some strategies to keep my body happy. I thought I’d share them and maybe you’ll find them useful, especially with Spinzilla coming up.

Get up and move – this one is hard for me because part of my brain screams, ‘you are away from your wheel, get back and keep spinning’, but if I go for a walk in the morning and get up regularly, every 45 minutes or so when I spin, I can actually spin longer and more consistently.
Stretch – I stretch my hands, arms, back and shoulders before and after a big spin. When I feel especially stiff, I have a back and shoulders yoga dvd I use. Stretching keeps all of my spinning muscles unkinked.
Switch it up – I change the types of yarn I spin and the wheel I use regularly. My positioning and movements are all a little different for each yarn and wheel and that cuts down on repetitive motion soreness. My most favorite change to my spinning routine is to spin standing up at a wheel. Lately, I spend half of my spinning time spinning with my Hansen miniSpinner on a bar stool. That alone keeps me spinning for more time than just sitting to spin.

Bar stool spinning! The pretty blue fiber is cjkohoDesigns merino in the Castiel colorway.

What tips do you have for spinning for hours at a time?