Latest C10

The first of my jewel coloured bases stitched up. I am experimenting more with my recent C10 patterns. I like the way that various colours alter the outcome of the temari.

Unexpected surprise

Yesterday when I returned from doing volunteer Math Goals testing for my son's 4th grade class my husband handed me a package that had arrived while I was out. See 'when you do good you get good'! My Mum is right on that one.

Kristy's gift temari to me

The package was from Kristy in Qld. The moment I touched the package (before I even shook it or squeezed it) I knew what was inside. There were three spools of surface wrap thread that I had admired on the beautiful ball she'd sent to me at Christmas. What a darling you are Kristy! Thank you so much for thinking of me and taking the time to post me some of this gorgeous thread. I love it!

My hands were already aching because I had re-made three temari in the last 36 hours (two C10s and a S12 and I still have a couple to go), and although I should have had a rest tonight I found a yarn wrapped temari and I couldn't resist covering it in this beautiful coloured thread. The of course I wanted to stitch it, something simple, but I wasn't sure what.

I reviewed all my old temari in boxes recently before donating a bunch of them to my son's school, and one part of a pattern stuck in my mind. The green layer from the Mema is a Star ball that I purchased form Barb Suess a couple of years ago. So I decided to try to work out the green layer from the ball (which is always displayed in my lounge room). When I was done with that part of the pattern I added some 6 point star bursts (Matsuba) to fill in the open areas. When I finished my temari I sat back and thought gee that is pretty neat, and an original design too. Well yes and no, it is original in the sense that I altered a design and added my own embellishments but actually I realised that there was a ball pattern out there that is strikingly similar. I got Barb's blog update about her Echo Star class beginning tomorrow and took a visit over to her Esty site. I discovered that Barb beat me to it and she sells the pattern on Esty but when I compare the images side by side they are actually different. Just goes to show you can't claim something as an original design too easily in temari making.

New C10

I think this is my most Japanese-looking temari to date. It is similar to the other recent temari I've made. I have been trying to break away from my Western colour mindset and use colour combinations that don't really come so naturally to me. I an doing this by reviewing the stash of Japanese fabrics in Miho and my collection. So here she is.

I treated a grouping of 3 centers opposite of each other as 'poles' and used the red embellishments and the remaining 6 pentagons around the 'equator' were decorated with the yellow centers. I really didn't like the colours when I started this temari but I think they worked out really nicely.

This is one of the pieces of fabric that inspired the colours of this ball. It didn't scan as prettily or brightly as it looks in real life.

This week's C10 Temari

I have been playing with pentagons on C10 division over the last week. Here is my first effort of temari making.

I can't help thinking of sand dollars,which are usually white, but the link image I found while writing this post is in purple. I realised after the first 3 rounds that I was using the wrong lines in the pentagons, but as I hate to rip out threads, I decided to continue with it anyway. I Zen-stitched* this design, which I think is original (but you can never be 100% sure about that).

My intention was to make a design like the one below, which is my second effort for the week. Still stitching dodgy french knots... but getting better than my first attempts from last year.

Both these temari have 12 pentagon shapes stitched on them. Isn't it funny how different these temari look? I think maybe I should change my perspective more often.

*Zen-stitching: This is what I call any stitching done with no active plan or perceived outcome. It is when I just pick up the needle and stitch. I sense when I am finished because the end product will suddenly appear. This type of activity is really meditative. You can also Zen-drive or Zen-walk (I mean move in a direction that is not planned) and find yourself somewhere unexpected. I usually will end up at the beach, a nice park like Kings Park or Queens Gardens or most likely my Mum's house. I don't, however, recommend Zen-shopping... that is fraught with danger... especially in a thread shop, stationery or kitchenware shop!
Here is a quick bit of theory on Zen.

Find time to do some Zen-stitching today.

Spindle Practice Redux

I've had another go at the spindle design this time using 1 row less stitching and a 0.5cm larger ball.

I think it turned out to look like a bag of musk sticks in this picture. Or maybe I am just a bit hungry. The colours are much nicer in real life. I think I am going to do this one once more... but with a twist.

Do you like my tea set? It was a birthday gift from Miho and Seth. I had just washed it up after making some Genmai-Cha with Matcha (green tea with puffed rice and powdered green tea).

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...

Latest C10

Here is the last C10 I've made. The original was in all pinks but I wanted to try something a bit different... I think the original ball was more effective because it made the relief pattern of the 5 petal flower stand out more. Maybe I made the dark triangles too large or the ball was too small. The instructions also said to make tiny triangle in the marking thread on top of the triangle stacks... I thought 'Ick no way!' so I stitched it with frosty nordic gold #4.

Anyway it is still nice, I will try this one again sometime.

We finally had a sunny day today so I took my light box outside and let nature supply the lighting. The neighbours thought I was crackers because I took the photos on the driveway with my box on a trestle table and my tripod set up. Because it was late afternoon the light wasn't as strong and was coming from over my shoulder so I kept setting the 2second timer and ducking to the side. I took about 50 photos so I imagine any onlookers would have had trouble working out what was going on.

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.

Preparing for ... Christmas in July

Well being July what better time to look forward to Christmas? Last week I posted about the 27 balls I had wrapped in Christmas colours and here are a few of the photos.

As you can see I am working in Green, Red, White, Gold and Silver.

When I have completed these balls I plan to make more in 'Non-traditional' colours like Purple, Blue.

The photo of 3 temari show my latest efforts. The top left temari is the ball I was working when I wrote the last post. The bottom one I made whilst trying to keep my fingers from freezing watching my Son's soccer training and the right ball was made today. Although my boys say "Oh no! Not temari again..." stitching this one inspired my Son's little buddy to make a teeny temari today which we attached to a mobile dangle for his backpack.

It is pouring again outside so it looks good for stitching more temari tomorrow.....

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