2010: A Temari Odyssey

2009 is done and dusted!!! Many people I know only barely survived it intact... making it to 2010 was indeed a celebration for removing the shackles of a tough year. Even I wanted to dance around singing 'ding dong the witch is dead' (let's return from Oz now shall we).

Having settled nicely into 2010, we are making temari again. I hope to work on the long temari to do list I have tucked away. This year I hope to work towards extending my skills as a temari maker and move into progressively more challenging patterns.  I plan to blog more often and include more pictures, conduct more classes, participate in more fairs and even place a temari into the Royal Show this year... but I need to research a category for that one.  I also aim to be more consistent at photographing and writing in my temari notebook.  I am at the point where I can no longer remember how I made every single temari and keeping a record is a much better use of my time than trying to reinvent the wheel whenever I want to re-make a design.

Right now my heart's greatest desire is to produce a perfect S4 Square stitch (Masu kagari) ball.  It looks like the simplest thing in photos but it really is a tough one to get just perfect.  The ball must be completely round and accurately divided, then each stitch needs to be precisely executed to ensure that all the corners meet evenly.  I am a frustrated perfectionist which leads me toward being a 'nudge and fudge' crafter.  Designs that have a bit of wiggle room to get them looking right are my thing. 

My little shoulder angel and devil are constantly battling it out trying to guide my stitching (I watched Disney's Emperors New Groove this week).  I most often begin judiciously following a pattern only to take a major right turn half way through the project (when the lil devil says 'hey what'll happen if we do this?') and end up somewhere else completely.

I have already made my first temari this year but wont be unveiling it until Jan 26th.  It is the first in the odyessy (or perhaps oddity) for this year.  I hope to get stuck into the next challenge tomorrow... but might need to tidy up my office first so I can find my notebook of temari 'to dos' and I should probably pack away all the Christmas decorations too.  Don't you hate it when life encroaches on crafting??