Recycled Hazelnut Temari

Last week I wrote about making some ice-cream desserts for Christmas. One of the recipes called for skinned hazelnuts, and while I would ordinarily throw the removed skins away, this year I decided to make a temari out of them. I placed the skins into a freezer bag with some rice hulls and wrapped it with a ball of wool. I was watching a movie while wrapping, and it must have been particularly interesting because I used the whole ball of wool. My base mari ended up having a 33cm circumference. I chose a navy blue thread base and C10 division. Last year (09) I purchased some braided Kreinick threads for $2 a spool, a local supplier was clearing their stock so I scooped up a whole bunch. I selected 5 glistening metallics and stitched a simple star in each face. My camera can't really pick up in the sparkle of the thread in such a small image but if you click each picture it will pop out a little larger to show more of a 'real life' view.

I liked how it turned out so I did it again using Sakasa Uwagake Kagari. This ball was slightly smaller at just under 30 cm. Again I put the points of the stars into the pentagon corners.

I really enjoyed the effect of both those designs and I wondered if I turned the points of the stars (from the first ball) onto the short lines of the pentagons whether I could make also stitch 6 pointed stars (similar to the second ball) over the 6 part triangle areas. Would it look too busy? If I kept the same threads for the 5 point star what thread should I use for the smaller 6 point ones? It thought on these questions overnight and then decided to just go for it, if the ball turned out to me a big sparkly mess it didn't matter because the threads I was using was inexpensive. I kept the same threads for the 5 pointed star and chose 5 variegated Krenick #8 braided threads (that I scooped up at the same clearance sale) for the 6 point stars. The base mari was 36cm. I spent ages trying to lay out the colours on the 6 pointed stars so no colour appeared twice around the border of any 5 point star. Yay for coloured head pins.

I didn't plan to make a set, but this so often happens with temari making. One question leads you to another and another...  On the upside of this experimenting, I think I have cracked a pattern by Barb Suess in the new Japanese language Temari book released earlier this year 7837701101 彩りのてまり歳時記 Coloured Temari: Seasonal Events (Irodori no Temari - Saijiki) featured on top of pages 52+53. I hadn't been able to turn the drawing in my head to work out how the pattern was laid out between the two main designs. But I had an AHA!!! moment as I stitched the first ball in this group. I wonder if Barb heard my very large penny dropping here in Perth. Things are always so obvious once you get 'it'.

I almost used all the thread on all 10 of the Kreinick spools... I stitched almost 100 meters of thread on these 3 balls. I've never really thought of it before, I usually think in time rather than length of design thread consumed... This made me wonder if I laid every piece of design thread I have used since I began making temari end to end... how long would that thread be? If I did the same in the yarn wrap or thread wrap how long would that stretch? I wonder how many years (and temari) it would take until I had used enough thread to stretch from here to Sydney (Approx: 4110km)? To the JTA museum in Tokyo (Approx: 7867 km)? Around Australia (Approx: 59,736 km)?

My boys like the third ball, I am partial to the second - in spite of the open spaces. What do you think?
Happy stitching.

Update on Chrismas baubles

Earlier this week I posted about the temari balls I've been making for the neighbours in my street. I am about half way done with this project now. Here is a new progress shot. I can see from the finger marks on the plate how many times this project has been moved around the coffee table.

All the small size temari are completed. Three of the medium size are also done and another has the obi band done and is awaiting the pole designs. There is still only one large temari finished, I am saving the large ones to stitch last. I still can't decide whether to string the sets of 3 together to make one graduated bauble or if they would be better as 3 separate pieces. I am leaning toward the prior but I've never strung temari together before so I need to work out the best way to do it, also I am trying to decide if they would look better hanging smallest to largest or largest to smallest... and lastly would I use a tassel and which thread would I used to make it?

The more I stitch these tiny temari the more I am falling in love with them... they're just so darn cute. I've been chanting to myself  'I am making these for all our lovely neighbours' from time to time as I stitch but truthfully the neighbours could possibly end up with baked goods for Christmas instead of these temari.

Happy stitching!

Ooops, I missed a week.

Sorry there have been no posts since last week. I got a bit distracted by physio and some strange 'fever and chills combination' that lasted several days and made it impossible to make temari (or do anything else for that matter). All better again now... yay for good health!

Shaking off last week... and so here we are with a new week and a new project. On Sunday I helped my Mum make some cushion covers for her friend's daughter. Mum was having trouble getting the bits all folded in the right places and thankfully I could remember how to make the covers from my high school sewing classes.

My temari project for this week involves making some little temari ball sets for the neighbours to hang on their Christmas trees. I am making 3 temari for every neighbour... lucky I live in a short street... there are only 8 houses. I've got 5 stitched so far and the other 16 are wrapped and ready to go.

These temari are a lot smaller than the ones I usually make. These bases are made with foam cores, I only used thread wrap for the small size and for the other two sizes I used some very thin machine knitting yarn under the thread layer.
The circumferences are 8.5cm, 11cm and 14.5cm. Obviously I can't use perle 5 for these so I am using Gutterman Rayon Sulky #30 for small, Gutterman Top Stitch for medium and Thread Art Cotton Perle #8, for the marking thread I'm using Rainbow Gallery Treasure Braid Petite for the smaller sizes and Nordic Gold for the large size. Luckily I did some experiments with several threads when I began making yubinuki so I have a few sizes of thin thread.

I am making 3 different designs, S8 on the small temari have a Maki Kagari design with a simple herringbone on the obi, S10 for the medium using a Hoshi Kagari (Star) in different colours on each pole with a stepped herringbone obi and S12 Uwagake Chidori Kagari on the large balls with a double herringbone on the obi. I cant decide if I want to place these on individual hangers or make a larger ornament  by stringing them together with a bit of tassel on the bottom. I guess I need to percolate on the idea a bit  more.

I'm taking a break from my recent yubinuki bead project and when these temari are done I've got some fabric notebooks to make for my Mum and Miho.

Hope you can settle down and enjoy some stitching through the week.

Thrilled all over

I have a few temari UFO's kicking around but my arm has been too sore to settle to them. Here is my latest temari. I really enjoyed working on this one and just love how it turned out. It is inspired by a pattern in Cosmo 4 p24 #6 (pattern p52). I changed the colours a little from the original ball because I wanted it to really pop with rainbow brightness. After I stitched it I was unsure if I had got the rainbow colours right... despite just coming out of winter here I haven't seen any rainbows for a while.

I really like this eye catching cheery little C8 fellow. I think I have 3 all time favourite temari that I have made so far (I mean those I worked out on my own rather than asking for help on) the other two are.

This one is a C10 and it is almost an all over design. My other favorite is below, a S16.

I'm sure I see a theme... they all have blue on them. I've stitched the last two many times, and I think I'll make the top one again in graduated shades of colour to see the effect.  Hmmm what colour might I use? Can you guess?

Till next time... just keep stitching!

3rd time a charm??? Yes it is!

I did it. And here's the proof. Finally!

I do really love this design. Believe it or not I am about to begin it again on a white base ball... as soon as I wrap it that is.

3rd time a charm???

A while back I stitched a ball from Cosmo 2 page 1. I really love the design. I thought I had done a good job of it and decided to make it again in paler colours.

As I laid down the final round on the new ball I realised that I had done something wrong.  I then discovered that I'd made the mistake in reverse on the first ball. Oh my goodness! How did I not see it before? Can you pick the mistake? I bet you can. Here is the sample ball from the book.

Now here is the first ball I made. Can you see the mistake?

Here is the new ball. Now setting aside the fact that the colour palette is different, can you see the new mistake?

I'm sure you worked it out. But incase you didn't, here is the problem.

Look at the top layers of star points in the original photo you will see that one side lays over the top of all the pentagon sides. In the first attempt  I managed to get most of my top points underneath (instead of over) the pentagon sides on most of the 12 star shapes.  With the second attempt I did actually think about the need to weave the top layers so you can see that most (but not all of the points are laid over the pentagon sides. I'm not sure how I missed this crucial element when I first stitched this design. Maybe it is because I tend to follow the instructions until I think I've got the idea and then put them away. I don't recall even looking at the original pattern for my second attempt. Which was a big mistake because instead I chose to refer to my own pattern notes (which didn't account for this part of the design element as I hadn't noticed it at the time) and the actual ball I had previously stitched. It was only when I noticed that the weaving was different in some sections that I referred back to the image from the book. Oh well you live and learn I guess.

I have another ball wrapped and ready to try this pattern for a third time. Here's hoping I can get it right this time! I'll post a pic when it is finished.   See this post for the 3rd ball.

Something in the air??

This week I have moved very slowly along. I have stopped and started and been distracted all week long. I haven't finished anything much. I remember someone else mentioned having a fit of procrastination (Jane maybe) and I must have some related bug. Perhaps it is something in the air, maybe it is due to being so over productive recently, maybe it is denial... I need begin to take action on all my big plans... or I'm going to get myself in all kinds of trouble with deadlines soon.


I built 3 shelving units for my craft room (with the help of my hubby and son) this means no more piles of boxes stacked up and the one you want being at the bottom. So everything is much more accessible. Next week I'm going to relabel all the boxes and rearrange them into categories (sewing/soapmaking/beading/temari).

I'm working a C10 temari but it is going really slowly (snails could stitch it more quickly). The design is not difficult, and I have stitched it before. This time it will be pale colours on a dark blue base and marked with blue metallic. I have also tried out some of the new goodies I got from Japan.

I made a nice yubinuki from the hardcover book and used the silk wadding for the base. I really like the outer curve of the thimble. I haven't been able to get such a nice shape just using cotton thread or felt as the padding. The design is new for me as it involves a little bit of weaving. The stitching on this one is a bit dodgy but I actually got the concept of the design and will probably make this one again. Due to the weaving it is ineligible for Mamercerie's share your thimbles this month. If I get time I might be able to make another this month, the prize on offer is lovely (as always). I will need to make up some more thimble bases, almost all of the ones in my stash are used. I can't believe it really, I never thought I'd get through them all.

Pattern play

I have been working on some patterns this week and have stitched several balls to see how the colours effect the design.

Here is the first pic.

I stitched the light pink one first. I adore the colours and think the background sakura shape the emerges is amazing. I stitched white, yellow and green on this one with Nordic Gold #4. You can just see a hint of the sparkle in the center. The next ball was the mauve one. This one is cream and 2 shades of purple with Nordic Gold #10.  I think the metallic was a little too bold for this design, still nice. The last ball is the cerise one. Stitched with white, yellow and navy and Nordic Gold #12. Which mix of colours do you think works best? I think my brain is drawn automatically to the light pink one because it is more likely to exist in real life. How often have you seen a cerise or lilac coloured sakura flower?

Here is the next pic.

I made the blue one first. I always think of stars being in oranges and yellows on blue backgrounds. I wanted to try to break the mental mould so I chose 3 colours at random from my wrapping threads and decided to stitch them. First I made the one on the far right. It is kind of a burgundy shade and has a lipstick pink, orange and pale yellow. I quite like this one in real life... it is much brighter. Next was the grey one. It is made with sky blue, lead grey and steel blue. It is really cold looking. The last ball I made was the coffee coloured one.  It is stitched in 3 shades of pink.

Which one do you think is nicest? I think my brain prefers the blue/orange one, but my heart can't really choose between the 3 others as they all seem to have such a different feeling.

Last pic for today.

These are the flip side of the balls in the previous pic. It is interesting that while I really couldn't decide on my favourite for the other side, I definitely prefer the ball in the top left. I really like all of the balls but this one really says fiesta to me. What do you think?

Rush rush rush.

I am hurrying to get everything done this week. I have a new round of Temari 101 classes underway and a one day workshop booked in about 10 days so it's all systems go and full steam ahead too.

Yesterday I wrapped 12 white balls for the workshop. The bowl looked very boring so I've put in some patterns I've been playing with which are my effort toward some new beginner ball patterns for future classes. Can you spot the weird thing in the photo, besides the dodgy lighting? (the answer is at the end of this post)


How to come up with a new pattern? I wouldn't feel right teaching from other people's patterns so I always endeavour to come up with something original. This can be very tricky because, let's face it, Temari making has existed for several hundred years and so it must be very difficult indeed to arrive at something absolutely unique. In addiction there are so few resources for Temari makers (especially in English) that we must all be following a similar 'artistic consciousness'. Still I do try... The first thing I do is get out every book I have and leaf through the pages looking for inspiration.  Next I get a feeling for an element I want to incorporate in the design... then I go for it. I don't make notes as I go... after the ball is finished I make retrospective notes and then see if I can do the same ball again from the notes.  I also 'tweek 'as I go and make reedits along the way. This is  probably completely backwards to the way everyone else does it... but it works for me. 

I wanted to do something with stars, hence the two attempts above and also something floral is always nice so there is the Sakura shape too. I usually teach a really simple Chrysanthemum ball as part of every class, no skips just up and down, but I think it is time for a change. I like the Sakura but want to work on the star a bit more the outer star needs to be a bit fatter and the inner star needs to be thinner.... or something.

I also squeezed in an hour or two at the Bassendean textile workshop today where we learned finger crochet. I made a few strands of it to contribute to the city logo mural the organisers are making.

Photo Answer: The front blue ball is casting a white reflection on the bowl. I photo shopped it in from another picture I had taken because the blue ball is actually one ball with two different patterns. I nestled it on top of a white ball. Did you get it?

C10 Sampler Ball

The sampler ball I've been working on is completed.  The idea of undertaking the sampler ball was to experiment with a bunch of patterns and ideas that I wanted to try out but didn't want to commit to stitching a whole temari of.  I stitched 6 designs on opposite poles and this is what it ended up looking like.  I could have done 12 designs on this ball (or changed the colour sequences) and maybe next time I do this experiment I will.

I think I am officially over this set of colours and they are going into the back of the drawer for a nice long rest. I like my experiments with the layered star and lazy daisy.  I can't say I've seen  a temari with this type of layered daisy stitch (of course I am sure it has been done) and I have seen the other patterns in pictures but some required me to work out the stitching path like the Sakasa Uwagake Kagari (top left face) thankfully I could work it out this time since learning about this stitch when undertaking the Cosmo #3 P3 project. 

My next project is to measure the Sunflower #2 class ball and mark it out for stitching... but right now I have a hot date with the grocery store before school pick ups so I better run.

New Temari

Following my grand plan for making 15 each of C8s and C10s in 2010... Here is the first C10.

This temari is featured in Cosmo Book 2 Page 1 Middle.  I have included  the picture from the book as an inset into the pic of my interpretation.  I thought it turned out a bit too bright when I completed it at 2am this morning... but now I have seen it a few times in the daylight ... I quite like it.  The base mari was 2cms smaller than recommended in the pattern so the hex and pentagon are a little crowded but I still like it.  My next temari is also going to be a C10 from the same book but this one will be number 12 from page 3.  I will post it on completion... it may take a while as I am currently translating the pattern into English  :-s

In other news we are about to expand the book range in our supplies store... To have a look at the range click the link on the left bar.