Break from Temari and sitting on the mailbox

I am on a mail man imposed temari break. On the last night of my recent 101 course I parted with the last of my stock of metallic marking threads. Now I am completely out of thread (insert sobs here) so I am back to wrapping blanks etc for future temari. I have 2 orders winging their way to me.... one from the US and one from Japan but everyday this postie has gone right on past my mailbox. I am experimenting with shredded paper as a core for temari. The weight is between foam and rice hull and I wont know how it works out until I have completed the thread wrap. I am not sure if it will be compressed enough and keep its shape... although the yarn layer has rounded up nicely. I will keep you posted.

I have finally completed the pictures of my newly purchased books and updated the post about Japanese and English temari books in my stash.

I have been making something a bit different: little brooches in a temari style.

I have been using up all my thread leftovers, and threads I don't usually use in temari, perle8 and kreinick etc and also some old blue, black, red, and green velvet. I saw the basic idea in a Vandervoort book (meaning how to put it all together) and then stared my Zen stitching. My favourite type of stitching is Zen stitching. It is easy to do too. I clear my mind and then just let my hand pick up what ever thread colours it lands on and just work the needle with no clear plan.... I like to see what emerges. Usually what ends up happening is that I see something I like beginning to form then my brain takes by asking "what will happen if we do .....?" I am not sure if I prefer the squares or circles... my favourite one is the red on black with the filled center at the bottom of the 2nd photo.

Anyway... they are a fun experiment and whilst I don't like them all, they do recycle a lot of otherwise useless materials.