Howdy!  Here are a couple of yarns I spun this week.

The first one is "Saltwater Taffy," a superbulky shetland 2-ply.  I dyed the orange-red with Wilton's and Kool-Aid and left the other ply natural.  It was my first time spinning shetland and it was divine!  So easy to draft.  It's so bulky that my bobbin only held 73 yards, so I have another mini-skein of 35 yards.  I stuck a quarter in there to show how bulky the yarn is.



After plying the "Saltwater Taffy" I had some of the dyed singles left on the bobbin.  Decided to try supercoils for the first time.  So the 2nd yarn is called "Coral Supercoils."  Jacie Boggs jokes on her Sit and Spin DVD that when you're done spinning supercoils you'll have made about 4 yards of really cool yarn.  That's about right -- this skein is only 8.3 yards, but it was a fun experiment to spin it.



A closer view to show the coils better:

Here's an earflap hat I made with my homespun yarn.  I named the yarn "speckled hen."


From my Speckled Hen Yarn:


I had about 10 yards less yarn than the pattern called for, so I had to leave off the single crochet edging the pattern calls for.  I used every last inch of my yarn!  I left the tails of my yarn on the tassles sort of uneven and wild-looking.  I feel like either an elf or Ghenghis Khan when I wear it.  

Here's another less flattering angle that shows the shape a little better:


And this is the pattern I used:
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/earflap-hat-20178---crochet

Found these designs in the Hoop Love group on Flickr and couldn't resist stitching them.   There are more, but here are the first two.  They are both done with two strands.  I did the hen in backstitch and the rooster in stem stitch.  I really enjoy doing monochromatic pieces, but playing around with the stitches I use to give some texture to the piece.





This one of them dancing was the first one I stitched.  I am not happy with the rooster's eye or the music notes, but not unhappy enough with them to rip them out and re-do them.  I have decided that from now on I will stitch eyes separately with their own thread, so that if I decide to rip them out it'll be easy to do.  These napkins are just for household use and not a gift, so I decided to live with the imperfections.

I had a craving for Springerle cookies this year, after not having them for about 15 years.  Trouble is, I don't have any Springerle molds.  I found some old Peanuts Gang plastic cookie cutters my husband's mom used to use when he was little.  I thought they'd be perfect, since Springerles hold their shape so well, and those kinds of cookie cutters often give disappointing results with sugar cookie dough since the design doesn't stay very well-defined after baking.  I've determined that whoever designed these cookie cutters was a bit of a sadist, because there are so many narrow little bits (like Snoopy's neck) that like to come apart when you're handling the dough.  Don't know if I'll ever want to use them again, but I loved having these cookies this year.

So, here's Snoopy and the gang!

I made photo ornaments this year for our tree, thinking it would be cool to have a REAL family tree during the holidays.  Growing up, I would occasionally see photos of great-grandparents and have no idea who was in the photos.  Now that I've started researching our family history and know who's who, I want  my son to know who his ancestors are!  I just made black and white photocopies on regular printer paper, and cut them to fit inside a 2.5 inch empty glass ornament.  I've got photos going back to my son's great-great-grandparents, and I wrote their names on the back so that if these ornaments (hopefully) last a long time, he'll really know who each person is.  By keeping them all black and white, even modern photos have an archival feel to them.

I know this isn't an unusual craft, but I"m just delighted at the results.  Here are a few samples:

At long last, I have finished the last four napkins in my set of 12 Sailor Jerry tattoo napkins!!  The embroidery itself has been done for months, but it took me a long time to get out my sewing machine to finish the edges.  I've been posting the napkins four at a time, so this is the final post.

These were made from an old flannel sheet I found around the house, and the designs are Sailor Jerry tattoo flash.  All are done with two strands of floss, and mostly stem stitch, with some back stitch and satin stitch.  I mainly use seed stitch for shading.

A Sailor's Grave


Rose


Eagle


Ship (I had fun with all the detail on this one)


In case anyone is interested in looking at the other 8 napkins, here are my older posts:
http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=336392.msg3891203#msg3891203
http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=347482.msg4048076#msg4048076

Fans of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood will recognize this as King Friday XIII of the Neighborhood of Make Believe.  This is my first attempt at crayon-tinting and overall I like how it came out.  Took the pic before I'd set the crayon with an iron, so the colors are a bit richer now.  Since this is a dishtowel, I sure hope the crayon-tinting will hold up to regular washing!

Embroidered with two strands.  Mostly stem stitch, as that is my fave, but also back stitch and chain stitch where needed.

Thanks for looking!

My mom and I attended a SAORI weaving class together today.  My mom has done a little weaving on a rigid heddle loom, and it was my first-ever weaving class.  It was such a treat!  The looms were already warped, the studio was full of yarn and scraps, and I loved the improvisational nature of this type of weaving.  It was a good type of weaving for me for a first attempt, since I tend to dislike following rules, and there's no right or wrong with SAORI.  When I look at my project, one minute I love it, and the next I think it's the crazy ugliest thing I've seen, but overall I had so much fun making it. 

Here are pics:

Howdy!  Finally got around to some dyeing and spinning.  This is "Fractured Black" -- used black Wilton's dye in a low-water immersion to let the component colors separate, the did a bulky corespun yarn.  It's only 76 yards but my bobbin was jam-packed!!  I've still got half of the roving left.  Not sure if I'll spin it this same way or do something different.

I'll start us off this week.  After finally finishing my Sheep to Shawl entry it was nice to spin for fun without a project in mind.

My yarn is kind of goofy-looking, but it was fun to spin.  It's called "Dirty Santa", 66 yards,  spun directly from locks.  The name is because after being in storage for a year, the locks had kind of matted together, and there was still lots of vm in there, but it looked like Santa's beard, if he hadn't taken a shower in a week.  I can't remember what kind of locks they were, but they were long and very curly.

I didn't do much to prep the fiber except separate the locks and tease the tails open a bit so I could spin them.  (Does it make this a tailspun yarn?  I don't know.)  I do like how it turned out, but it'll have to just be an accent on something because of the low yardage, and it's not super soft wool to begin with.




eta: added yardage amt.