C6 temari

I have made this temari because I wanted to try out a C6 marking for ages. Ok the marking went well but what pattern to choose??? Well I went for one from Debi A's temari math site (see the link on the side bar). BUT it required marking lines in the same colour as the design threads, oh dear that meant I'd have to make another ball or make the design in metallic thread. Well you can see the option I chose. No surprises there.

I really like this design (the original one had another set of lines in a diagonal inside the center squares) but I didn't think the metallic could support it... just too slippery. I will give this design another go on a slightly bigger base with cotton thread.

More spindle practice

Following the temari I made with the TT group recently I decided to have another go at stitching spindles. I have traditionally avoided stitching spindles but they aren't actually as beastly as many people make out. The biggest secret is stretching the points so everything lies down nicely. I have discovered that spindles work best when you know the area you need to fill and work the number of rows accordingly. This means ideally you need a pattern and a ball the correct size to get everything just right. But what happens when you are inspired by an image that has no pattern or size reference??? Well you just give it a go. I did this earlier in the week trying to decipher a beautiful temari I had seen elsewhere.

Most temari images have no (or an unfamiliar) reference point so it is sometimes difficult to rework a design on the correct size temari base. But this week I had a go and this is what I came up with...

My spindles are a little crammed so next time I will either make the temari 1 cm larger or stitch 1 less round. Also I will make sure to measure the starburst at the centers... or we could just pretend that I meant to have one longer line there. I am just about the begin this one again so I'll keep you posted on how it turns out. I took this photo on the 'zig zag bridge' walkway near my front door. I think this is my new favourite place to take photos... even the two ants that were crawling about kindly stayed out of shot. Nice!

Stitching this temari has helped my work out the possible first flower on my TC project ball... more about that in my next post..

Wishing you a stitchy day...

New temari

Perhaps new is a misrepresentation... This first temari is one that I unpicked the bands on not once but twice so this here is the final version. Still not 100% happy with it but I wanted to put it away so I could focus on other things.

This one is my 'disco' turtle temari. It is what I came up with from the TK stitch along. The pattern was discussed during an online hookup that I missed so I was really stitching blind, there was no final project image shown at the commencement of the project. I remember now how much I dislike stitching this way, call me a spoil sport but I'm not a big fan of mystery stitching... I am a road map person I need to know the destination and I'm happy to learn the land marks as I go. Of course having said that... I did learn some interesting pointers about not making assumptions and working from verbal (written) instructions alone is an important skill to acquire... I guess the reason I don't like it is because I'm just not too good at it. I've got a few green colours I'm going to add as a startbust onto open areas on the sides.

I am wondering what to do with my really huge C10 ball for the TC flower challenge. It is wrapped in mid green with treasure braid petite marking lines. I think I am going to outline the shapes before stitching the flower but I'm not sure what would look best. I might just go with woven pentagons to keep the framework simple in the hope that my stitching on each pole will pop. I also need to examine how to subdivide the pentagons to increase the number of centers so I can stitch multiple flowers in each section. I am either going to stitch the flowers in #8 perle cotton or KYO. So many choices!!!

Tonight for dinner I made basil pesto from the herb patch basil. It was delicious... or at least I think it was... Mr W said is was gross but I'm not sure if that was due to him having a 9 year old palate or due to me having a raging head cold which means I have few working taste buds.

I didn't use a proper measured recipe for it, I've made pesto before, so I just threw in garlic, pine nuts, romano cheese, EV olive oil a little salt and of course lots of basil. I guess I should have added pepper but I don't like it so my hubby can grind some on top if he wants to.
Tomorrow we are having a big clean up of the yard, sick or not, there is a Category 3 cyclone (named Bianca) heading down our coast line and it is expected to hit land at either Perth or Bunbury (about 2 hours south) so everything that could possibly get picked up and/or tossed about is getting secured down and moved away from window areas around our home. I really hate cyclones. We are lucky that it is rare to get them this far south, but this one is predicted to hit Perth directly... hopefully it will get downgraded to a Cat2 or Cat1 by the time it gets here. Fingers crossed!!! So here I go looking for the silver lining... ok... got it... I'll spend some time on Sunday stitching temari because the storm should hit about 10am and we wont be able to leave the house.

First Temari for 2011

I've had these ones finished for a few days now but I've not had time to post them. I'm not sure which one I like most, probably the yellow one, although the pink on is very effective too... but then the purple temari is growing on me. I haven't removed the scrap thread yet on the purple one. I don't make many temari that need to have the marking threads removed, I really like the effect of the design not appearing anchored to the ball.

I want to draw your attention to Rod B's Japanese Textiles blog today so you can see a new temari he has been working. He included a draft version of the pattern (there is no diagram yet) but the steps have been written. I really love his use of colour on this one... I think they seem quintessentially Japanese.

I need to work on varying my colours more, I find I get into a colour rut and have trouble escaping it. I think I will go through my Japanese fabric stash for some inspiration.

Finally back to temari making

The last few weeks have been so busy, it seems like I have done EVERYTHING except make temari or yubinuki. During the afternoons this week I have managed to pick up my needle to complete some UFO's. In the late mornings I've been taking my son to swim classes at the beach.  I must say I am amazed at the number of people laying on the beach frying away. I wear a huge hat, 3/4 sleeve shirt and 3/4 length pants and any exposed bits are generously slathered with 30+ sunscreen, the only bit that is bare are my feet which I bury into the sand - trust me there is nothing worse than sunburned toes. I am lucky to have been injured in a car accident when I was 16, the plastic surgeon who stuck me back together was most firm at drumming in the sunsafe message for my facial scarring, and almost 3 decades later the message has still stuck with me even after the scars have faded to almost nothing.

After an hour and a half in the baking sun I am exhausted so we get all our chores done before swimming and then try to do as little as possible afterwards. I have been working a version of a pattern from my small Ondori booklet. This is a S4 with additional support lines. Sorry this picture is a bit dark, but I got called away this afternoon and when I got back it was too dark for natural light.

I think I will pull the band back off and re-wrap it in some other colours because in this pic it looks awful. Let's see what it is like in the morning light. While I have been stitching this, I am also thinking about the design options for my last two JTA temari.

I also have just purchased 3 stockings for next year from an ebay store located in Canada can you guess which one will be mine?   I haven't seen stockings like this in Australia.

Images from: http://stores.ebay.com/Calleycats-Treasure-Chest 

Our Aussie dollar has gone so high against the USD hitting 102 cents today, which is the highest in almost 30 years. This means that I could treat myself to a bit of discretionary spending. Sadly the yen hasn't done the same thing... the Aussie dollar is still languishing around 81 JPY.   :-( but we did have a good spot with the Yen about 3 years ago when we could buy 105 JPY per AUD... maybe that will happen again.

I am expecting to need to find several quiet things to do for a few days starting on January 1st... our weather forecast is for 4 or 5 consecutive days over 40C. Egad! When I saw the following forecasts from the WA bureau of meteorology I can honestly say I nearly cried. I think I will be spending as much time as possible over the next week doing early morning watering on the garden and trying to keep the chickens cool with a little misting, I'll even give the dogs a super big brush to get rid of as much loose hair as possible as the clippers that will manage to cut their hair has not yet been invented.

1.1.11 Saturday Sunny. Min 19 Max 36
2.1.11 Sunday Very hot, sunny. Min 21 Max 40
3.1.11 Monday Very hot, partly cloudy. Min 24 Max 40
4.1.11 Tuesday Very hot, partly cloudy. Min 25 Max 40
5.1.11 Wednesday Hot before a humid change. Min 25 Max 40
6.1.11 Thursday Partly cloudy. Min 22 Max 32

On the plus side I realised that new years day has a date that I like. All number ones. Hopefully this is auspicious and can signal new beginnings for all that want them.

Well that's it for this year. In a few hours it will be 2011, I wish you all the best for your celebrations, stay warm, safe and dry until next year.

Cheers and 乾杯 (Kampai)  

Rebecca and the Aussie Temari Addicts.

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.

Pattern play part two

I've been stitching my heart out lately but there's not too much I can show right now.  This week I have been playing with patterns again. I have been trying out different colours on a wrapped bands pattern. This is a fun activity and I learn a lot every time I do this. I've done four balls in this design and while I think I prefer the blue and red one, I can't really place the other three.

Which one do you prefer?

I have also been playing with one of my favorite patterns from Cosmo 1. I've mixed it up a bit and am plugging in different colours to see how they look. I really like the shape formed at the pole area. I can't say that I have ever seen this shape before... could I have stumbled on something new? Not too likely, with all the hundreds of thousands of temari that have been made over the years since the first temari was stitched, I am sure someone else has stitched this before. I've never seen it though.

Which colours do you like best?

This last set are to temari I made this week working from a pattern I stitched for my JTA submission (the red one) last year. Please excuse the stitching on the pink one, it is a bit wonky... I was watching a German movie while stitching this one and as I don't speak the language I was mostly reading the subtitles... when will I learn that I can't 'watch' a subtitled movie and stitch temari at the same time? I might go back and try to groom out that flat side which I hadn't noticed being so bad until I saw this photo.

The more I play at making temari the more obvious it is that selecting colours to use on a project can be harder than working out the pattern when written in Japanese. Sometimes the colours I select are bang on perfect and other times what seems like a nice combination in my hand looks hideous on the temari. I have grabbed a bunch of lovely pale colours only to see them turn out all faded out on the surface of my temari. The 'pop' factor can be somewhat elusive. Occasionally I've grabbed random colours that don't seem to match only to see them sync up on the ball like magic.  Also interesting is that the same set of threads can look wonderful on one pattern and terrible on another. This is why I really like the exercise of trying out several colours on a pattern.

Maki Kagari AFL Temari

I didn't actually plan it at the start, but this is how it turned out. Last week I made a bunch of balls to compare the Cup measurement technique for filling temari cores.  I had always suspected that all cups were not equal and now I have proven it as far as rice hull and dryer lint anyway....

So as I had plenty of smaller sized balls I ended up making three balls made for one TK Maki (wrapped band) Kagari stitch along this week. I have also learned to mark a C8 by eye instead of measuring and have been practicing this new skill. I made several balls without measuring when I first took up temari making but I decided it really wasn't scientific enough as a techique so I stopped.... I bet with a bit more practice I could get quite good at this... It does save time with not needing to pin but then I am slower at actually wrapping the marking lines this way so it is probably no quicker just now.

The first one (top left in WCE colours) was wrong... due to an assumption of the instructions rather than the actual instructions. I really like it anyway. The second one (front in Dockers colours) was right... thanks to actually reading and following the instructions... and the third one (top right in Magpie colours) was just me wanting to cover all the marking lines.

In our family we support 3 different AFL teams (Australian Rules Football) Two teams are from Perth and the other is from Victoria.  It is almost the end of the season now and there is only 2 more weeks of finals until the grand final which is held on the last Saturday in September. Sadly, my team the West Coast Eagles (WCE) have been eliminated from the finals... OK they didn't qualify... alright they came last in the competition. Fremantle Dockers, my son's team, are in the finals for only the 5th time ever... OK they have only been in the competition since 1995. The Magpies aka Collingwood, is my husband's team. They are the team most people love to hate, established in 1892, they have only managed to win one AFL grand final... OK they did win 13 grand finals in the predecessor of the AFL which was the VFL. My worst scenario is that Fremantle and Collingwood will face off in the 2010 AFL Grand Final. That will be a terrible 100 minutes of viewing in our house followed by weeks of crowing/crying.

So like our recent federal election (held on August 21, 2010 for which we still have no result) choosing a team to barrack for in the Grand Final this year is more like eliminating the teams you least want to see playing until you reach just two teams... then deciding which of those two you would be least crushed to have win.

All this spot stuff is fun but actually pretty irrelevant, with major flooding in Pakistan, and on the east coast of Australia, people getting hit in major storms down the eastcoast of USA and a huge earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand. I hope wherever you live you're safe and dry today.

Look what I found

I have been digging through my box of temari looking for examples of C8's that I have made. I came across these ones that I haven't shared before.

This one was a little sad attempt at an interlocking band design. I think it was from TK or from Debi's notebook. Either way it didn't work out so I added the flower design as pictured and on the other end I did a strange looking herringbone flower. I didn't immortalise it in picture. I tried again on the next ball. It didn't turn out right again... maybe the woven sections were done too close to the 6 part triangle lines so the shapes didn't quite turn out as they should have.

Oh well I still like it... I was also experimenting with variegated thread... did you notice? I always wonder when it is right or wrong to use a variegated thread. These look ok.

I really like this one. It is from TK. I had this base ball wrapped in Yellow for ages! I could never figure out what to use it for. Inspiration! this design said 'yep it might just work'.

This is one I have been working on this week. Strangely enough a similar ball came up in a question this week on TC. Isn't it strange that out of all the temari makers, in all the world two people should be working the same (or at least very similar) ball at the same time.

Getting out of the rut - Unusual Colours

I've been in a colour rut.  Many of my temari are stitched in either blue or red (red always seems so traditionally Japanese to me).  I tend to binge on making temari bases and can make up to 20 in a day, but I can never leave them in their undies (just at the yarn layer) I am always compelled to wrap the thread layer. Hmmm... so this could be why I end up in a colour rut. 

Back in July 09 I made a huge number of Red, White and Forrest Green coloured bases and have been using them steadily ever since.  I had the last two green balls sitting in my stash for ages but I couldn't think of what to do with them.  Forrest green is a tough one to stitch so what to use?? I decided that if I was ever to get out of this rut I had to challenge myself to using colours that I either disliked or wouldn't normally put together.  I came up with a palette of similar mid tones in blue, green, yellow and orange.  I then looked at my to do list and picked a pattern I liked (that would be fun and easy to make after the HHG challenge).  I found my pattern inspiration on page 16 of the 12 more months of temari book.  This is what I came up with. The image from the book is inset bottom left.

It is a loose interpretation from the picture, there is no pattern written up for this one.  It is basically just wrapped bands with a small amount of Herringbone stitch to secure the green layer crossovers.  It has a simple blue band obi at the equator.  I really like how it turned out (it was not so tightly packed at the pole as the picture)  I would like to make this one again in a different set of colours.

That used up one of the dastardly green bases but what to do with the other?? Well... I am finally taking a (twice postponed) group of high school girls for a temari lesson next week and I decided to re familiarize myself with the designs I am using.  So here is how they turned out.  I did each pattern on opposite ends of the same ball.

This pole shows a design found in many books and I have made this time and again in so many colours. My favourite version is found in the first pages of Cosmo 1 and features purple tones.

I think this pattern is actually featured in almost every book I own.  I know Barb used this type of pattern in blue and white on a different division (Arrowheads I think) in her book and it looks great on many divisions.

So all in all I am quite happy to have broken out of the rut and be moving towards new colour horizons.

I have decided that for future wrapping binges I will not wrap more than two bases in the same colour.  This should help to keep my colour choices open.

Thread Challenge Ball #1

Over at Temari Challenge we have been working on a thread challenge.  The task was set to choose several threads that we hadn't used before for temari making from the Rainbow Gallery ranges.  A poll was taken for colour themes and thread types and when the results were in the winners were announced.  We ended up using Very Velvet Petite, Nordic Gold, Mandarin Floss (made with 100% bamboo), and Patina (a lovely Perle 5 sized twisted rayon).  The colour selection was pink, purple and blue tones.  I chose a design from the Purple Olympus book as my inspiration but made a few changes here and there.

The base is white cotton thread with a flat Silver metallic embroidery thread wound randomly over the top layer.  The marking is S8 in Silver nordic gold.  Then there are 3 rows of Very Velvet Petite in Blue and 2 rows of Nordic Gold in Sapphire; 3 rows of Very Velvet Petite in Pink and 2 rows of Keinick #16 Braid in Pink; 3 rows Patina in Purple and 2 rows Nordic Gold in Purple.  At the Octagon created at the poles I stitched a small spiderweb stitch in Mandarin Floss Light Blue then flattened out the floss to stitch a star burst to radiate from the circle to the edge of the octagon.  At the obi I wrapped 8 wraps of the Mandarin Floss and then secured it with a single herringbone stitch around with Nordic Gold in Sapphire.


I actually didn't intend to have a white base - I planned on a beige or creamy one but this ball was already wrapped, I didn't really have the motivation to create one from scratch and the other balls I had wrapped were bright red or forrest green.  All in all I think it turned out fine.  I love rayon to stitch with (the Japanese thread in our store is rayon though slightly finer thread than the Patina) it always slides through your fingers and feels lovely to work with.  The Velvet was surprising to work with, I thought it would kink and play up but it was well behaved and adds an interesting dimension to the temari not to mention a lovely feel.  Ok the kreinick was not part of the challenge and neither was the silver threads or the sapphire one but I think we were allowed to add some other threads to complete the challenge.  The only thread I didn't enjoy using was the floss.  I don't know what it is about floss but I just can't get the gist of it.  It goes flat when I want it plump and plumps up when I want it flat... of course I know that is probably more the fault of the stitcher than the thread.  I will continue to try to work out the floss issues because there are so many lovely temari patterns (that I just adore) made with floss.

Temari To Do List... a never ending challenge

Cosmo books have all arrived (apart from #7 which is currently out of print - I'll catch that one later...) and I have spent days pouring over them. I have distilled the first list, I am sure there will be many more, from the range which comes to approximately 80 temari. This will keep me busy for a good while.

I had a wrap-fest on Saturday which netted me a total of 27 balls which were wrapped in either Red, White or Dark Green thread. Can you guess that this might be the start of my christmas temari campaign? I made the balls with 3/4C of hull and used approx 500g of hull all together.

So far I have been working on Cosmo Book 1 and have completed 3 balls with a 4th in progress.

Cosmo Book#1: Top is #5, P6; R is #3 P3; L is #1 P2 (in progress)

I have made two of the design featured on ball 5 page 6. I made it the first time as a spindle (as I already had a ball with an obi on it) and then I made it again as a wrapped band. I liked how it turned out both ways, although the wrapped band method was faster. Although you can barely see it the 'in progress' ball has a dark green thread wrap (these are 3 of the 27 I wrapped on the weekend).

These are the first of my Christmas Temari. The tri-wing is also featured in the Cosmo books but a similar design is in Mary Woods book so I can't say which was the real influence... I guess I smashed both ideas together and arrived at something a little different.

Here are a few spindles I worked on back in June. They should have been in a previous post but I fried my SD card & lost all the data on it that hadn't been backed up :( Luckily it was mostly temari pics so I just had to re-shoot them. Sorry for the poorer photo quality but we haven't had a 'bright' day for a while and had to take flash assisted pics.

Naoko's Temari

Photos of Naoko's recent temari.

She shared these today when we met for our weekly stitch.

Naoko always amazes our group with her beautiful colour selections.

Not too sure of the source for the patterns on all the above temari, but they are stunning. The kiku pattern below can be found on temarikai's site and is a free pattern.

We all love it but Naoko is the first brave one to try it out.

The temari below was inspired by a spindles at a pole pattern from temarikai. Rebecca was the first to stitch it and everyone loved it (of course it is a beautiful design) and so the next time our group met she had copies for everyone. Check out temarikai for really lovely temari patterns.

Happy Easter!!

Well 2009 is 1/3rd gone already. Can you believe it? I began making Easter egg shaped temari but then I decided to make a few teeny temari (1 inch) and got hooked on them. So here is the pic of the first egg shape I made and below is the box of bonbon sized balls. All but two were made by me. There is a yellow and blue asterisk star made by my seven year old and also one in oranges made by Miho. Mostly they are experiments in Kiku stitching. I tried different weaving and spacing etc to learn about how each would look. Hope you see something you like.

Yes it is true. All stuffed into a ferrero rocher box, 32 teeny temari of all descriptions. Below I have taken some closer shots of the box's contents.




Sorry the shots are taken sideways as you can see there are about 4 temari waiting to be stitched but I am amazed that the box is full. Every Tuesday our temari girls asked where are your new temari?? But I have only made a few new large ones lately.

I really like to play with Kiku and see how each pattern emerges. In the various teeny's I have experimented with Cottons in Floss, Perle 8, Perle5 and even a polyester Gutterman thread which comes 30m on a green spool (I think it's for embroidery) Miho's ball is in the picture here (bottom right in red orange and yellows)


I picked up a box of 40 Perle 8 threads from ThreadArt (in USA) and they work quite nicely for stitching this size ball. You can use a tissue as the base for this size (and make them even smaller) but I have used a 1 inch foam core and when I purchased a bag of 20 I spent a few nights wrapping them in yarn then thread ready to be stitched.

OK, did you spot the little face? I was just about to mark the ball up and my son grabbed it and started sticking pins into it. He asked me to stitch it up and this is what we came up with. We think this is how he looks 1st thing in the morning - before we wet his hair down! Also in the top right of the same picture is his 1st temari.

So the egg idea didn't take, but I did get into the chocolate thing for Easter by using the chocolate box. I have a bunch of egg shapes wrapped in the wool layer so maybe I will try again in a few months.... and be ready for next year....
Rebecca