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Tuesday 30 March 2010

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.

Monday 29 March 2010

Perth Upmarket

Yesterday I went with my one of my besties, LouLou, to the Perth Upmarket.  It is a quarterly handmade artisan craft market which has been held since 2008 in the Perth Town Hall .  This year the market expanded to the University of WA's Winthrop Hall.  Image below from wikipedia


My favorites are Anna Hadwin's amigurumi, Craftapalooza's scrabble tile jewellery, Eucalypt Homewares gorgeous ceramic bowls, Mokoh Design's magnets and prints, and Tamara Harrison's and Pelava's awesome jewellery.  All I can say is WOW there are some talented people in our city!

I have been noticing something of a crafting trend over the last 18 or so months.  Just over 18 months ago it was all about CUPCAKES then about 6 months ago it turned into all things BABUSHKA MATRYOSHKA and this time it is all about OWLS.  I wonder how these trends start? And how it can be that so many individual crafters happen to have such similar themes.

There were several items that were made with fabric or paper the had temari printed somewhere on the design... there is a real Japanese influence in crafting materials here (maybe it is the same everywhere) but, having said that, there were nothing like temari or yubinuki items for sale... Maybe there will be one day?!

Sunday 28 March 2010

Weekend update! update!! update!!!

Sorry I've just been watching an old episode of SNL. My favourite weekend update(rs) were Tina Fey and Amy Poehler... and I liked Jimmy Fallon with Tina Fey too.  I can't think of TF anymore without hearing her say 'I can see Russia from my house!' Top points for her Sarah Palin take off!

Boy for someone who knows little to nothing about geometry I sure can go off on a tangent!!

Today is Earth Hour Day and we err... well... didn't actually participate this year.  I mean not tonight anyway... but we did have our electricity off for 7 hours on Monday night so does it count - being in the same week?  May...be... not!!! But I have only just put all the candles away from Monday night. I wonder how many people in Perth did participate this year...  On the upside I have finally taught my son to turn off the lights in any room he is leaving and I haven't used my clothes dryer since 2009 - I used to be a 365 day clothes dryer queen.  OK so now I don't feel so bad missing out on the symbolic gesture of Earth Hour Day when I am making actual life changes to effect our planet.

OK now focusing on temari! 

Today my Adult Temari Class ladies popped in.  I am impressed how their sampler balls are going... I have only done 3 faces but will finish mine this week.  I like the idea of a sampler ball because it allows lots of small areas to play with new ideas without committing to a big ball of the design. You can choose to experiment with one particular stitch and change the colours etc or change the way you apply the stitches to the ball. So far on my ball I have used a tsumu kagari (spindle) and  uwagake chidori kagari (herringbone) and still want to do a Shitagake Chidori Kagari (braided), a pentagon rose garden, and a hoshi kagari (5 point star) I was also thinking of experimenting with some type of layered lazy daisy inside a bordered pentagon... but that might not actually work out.  I will post pictures when the ball is finished.


Last reminder for Competition entries


Been thinking about entering our thread pack competition? You know the one we're running to celebrate our Blog's 1st Anniversary? Please don't miss out, there are just a few days to enter before the draw on April 1st.  You are in a really great position to win! Entry is quite simple.. just join our blog and select the option to be a public follower.  All the competiton details are found here in the original post.

Saturday 27 March 2010

Latest Temari

As you all know I have been taking Barb Suess' Sunflowers Class.  It is progressing really well, and I am enjoying it a lot.  So today I have some pics of the first completed ball.  I am glad to have discovered that I have a similar purple to the maxi-lock thread supplied in my own stash so I may make the biggie big ball in the same colours... if I can get the same stitching thread colours here.



I am loving this class and find myself salivating all day on Sunday at the prospect of the next installment the following day.  I am not surprised at all to see several names on the class data base of people who also took the Echo Stars Class early last year.  Also I noticed that there is one other Aussie.  Hi J.C. from NSW!!!



Also here is a SPOILER ALERT in case you are doing the TT March Mystery Ball.  My attempt is pictured below. I remember now that I don't really adore making spindles.  Perhaps I am too rough but they love to scrunch in on themselves at the sides (if that makes sense) when they are single.  I never (touching wood here) have this problem when making layered spindles which cross near the center.



Now I had heard of Crocus flower but had never, to my memory, seen one.  So after I stitched the ball I googled Crocus and here is what came up with.... the image below is from here and there are a bunch (pardon the pun) of really lovely flower photos at this site.  I think I will save this link to my favorites.


I think after all my current projects are finished I will make a temari and yubinuki set. I think it might be interesting to try to make a thimble to use as a stand for a specific temari.  Hmmm maybe something to think about..... (brain beginning to percolate with ideas...)

Wednesday 24 March 2010

And We're back.... stitching temari.

Now that non-pioneer life has resumed for most of our city's residents (sadly some 20,000 homes still have no power & won't for several more days and others have mud within 3 feet of their ceiling - I don't mean muddy water here I mean compacted clay mud from a landslide) I have been able to complete the Soccer team bags Huzzah!!! As a reward I treated myself to stitching Flower One of my 1st Sunflower ball.  I really like it.  There is just a little more on the center stitching to go and It'll be done.

As an aside: Monday's storm was the worst we have had for 16 years and the first time I have EVER seen the sky turn that grey green colour I have read about in books.  We are pretty lucky in Perth (Yes I AM touching wood right now) not to have awful floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, etc so we are all generally unprepared for Mother Nature's fury when she unleashes it.  I have been taking an informal survey on what people fed their families last night when the storm hit without warning.  Some interesting ones have been Bread Rolls, Instant Ramen - cooked on a gas cooker at the dining table, Barbecued-whatever-they-could-find-in-the-fridge-that-didn't-need-to-be-defrosted on the BBQ dragged under the patio out of the rain, breakfast cereal....   So what is your favourite Blackout recipe?

Images from Perth Now Website.  These are all places I know really well.  The pic with the bike is taken by the freeway exit way near where Miho used to live in West Leederville - you can almost see the evening traffic in the background. This spot is at the bottom of two hills. The bus station is North of the City in Wellington St,  I must have walked through this spot a 100 times.  I think it is ironic that the ad in the bus shelter is for headache tablets.  The bottom pic is of our old ATO (Taxation Building HQ) - now it is a Ritzy hotel if you can believe it.  This is near the start of St Georges Tce.  See the cars at the left of photo?... that road (Victoria Ave) heads straight to the river... I bet it was flowing really fast down this road and I am surprised to see cars there.  I bet the cars turning right into this road haven't thought about what they'll find at the bottom of the hill. To the right of this picture (just out of shot) there is a fairly steep hill.

Tuesday 23 March 2010

Can't see for Temari

Well our 5 month dry spell is over with a big storm dumping 48mm of rain in 4 hours in some parts of Perth.  My area got 36.6mm in the same time.  There was hail as big as golf balls and widespread power outages including 150 sets of traffic lights (which would have to be close to half the entire city's traffic lights).  We were one of the lucky ones to only lose our power for 7 hours.  Several of our friends lost house windows and ceilings etc but we were so fortunate for our home to remain high and dry (on the inside).

We had homemade tomato soup for dinner and cheese jaffles - followed by melting ice cream... a shame to waste it.  I told our son as we ate by candle light 'This is how it was over 200 years ago before electricity was in every house.  Everyone that was lucky to have a candle could read or sew but others just had to go to bed when the sun went down.' Yeah right! He was sitting there playing against his Dad on DS while listening to his ipod and this was after watching a movie on his portable DVD player while I was making dinner.  But I think he got the message... because when we woke this morning and he opened the fridge to discover the power restored he exclaimed 'Thank goodness for electricity Mum!'

I managed to mark out the faces of my sunflower ball and and pin up for stitching but the flicker of the candle made me give up for the night... even I'm not that addicted to risk temari stitching by candle light.  So there was nothing for it... we were all in bed by 8:30pm.

Saturday 20 March 2010

Almost Easter... lots of projects on the hop.

The postman finally delivered my thread pack yesterday for Barb's Sunflowers class.  It actually made it here pretty quickly seeing as it had travelled 1/2 way around the world to get here. He (the Postman) must think I am a Psycho because I can recognise the sound of his van pulling up and tend to rapidly launch myself out of the front door to pounce on every parcel he delivers.  He is getting much faster at crossing from van to front door and back... maybe he is worried I might miss my target and accidentally scoop him into the house.

I have completed the first week of stitching on Barb's class and prepped all the other bases.  I have started on the March Mystery Ball from TK.  (No one cyber slapped sense into me and I have now completed the High School Classes and the TC Braided Challenge)


In this image you can see the 3 purple balls ready to go for the Sunflower class.  There is the white one for the MMB the only clues I have are spindle stitch and Crocus Flower (I have no idea what Crocus is - having a black thumb) and the coffee one is for my Adult temari class where we are making a C10 floral sampler.  The blue ball is just a blank I wrapped to try out the colour... now I need to think of a design to use on it.  Lastly, the huge black yarn wrapped ball is the extra challenge ball for Barb's class.  It has a foam ball inside (not for holding a bell but just to reduce the overall weight and at least 5 cups of hull.  My stocking hit maximum density so my only option was to use 150g of yarn (this was about 675metres long = 738yards) to get the mari to the correct circumference.  I don't know what colour I will wrap this base in... I don't know if I can get the same colour here as the other 3 purple balls so I might go for something else but I will definately wait until the rest of the class is finished before I start on it.

I am continuing to stitch on the white ball today. 

Thursday 18 March 2010

Braided Kiku Challenge Ball

I have completed the ball for TC's current challenge. I used cream, light and medium pink, lavender and deep purple. There are two sequences from light to dark stitched on both poles. The obi is made of many rows of purple Nordic Gold then secured with silver. Here it is.



I really like how it formed a stacked flower effect.  At the beginning I thought of trying to stitch an obi of interlocked diamonds so I planned on just one sequence, but as the pole design emerged I thought it needed a more simple obi. This meant I should have done two rows in each colour as there would be too much room at the equator.  Solution? Run the exact sequence again.

I found this stitch interesting .  Tension is definitely something to keep an eye on. I wonder how it would look starting further out from the pole? I like the lattice look created.  Most other braids I have seen are more tightly stitched (maybe it is because they are stitched with double thread or maybe they are just nudged up more closely than mine) but I like the openness of the weave.

This ball is the last one from my recent experiments with dryer lint. I found it at the bottom of a bunch of stitched balls... yippie! Ok it was purple but at least I didn't have to make a base.

Well that'll hurt tomorrow.

I have been busy, busy, busy this week. 

Sunday was Adult temari class  - we are making a C10 sample ball and having Q&A about problem balls.

Monday was I took sixty plus Year 10's for temari classes. 

Tuesday started with several hours of filming for 5 tutorial videos about basic temari making and I was also very lucky to have my SIL, niece and nephew over for a nice long visit too. 

Wednesday I did a little re-filming and then edited all the tutorial videos. Tonight I wrapped 4 class balls for Barb's Sunflower class (just the yarn layer because the thread pack is still on its' way). The largest ball I have ever wrapped (51cm circumference) is now sitting on my hot chocolate table - I don't drink coffee so the term 'coffee table' is a bit redundant.  I couldn't quite fit enough rice hull into my stocking so I used 150grams of wool to get to the right circumference.  Now that was a whole lot of wrapping.  I am going to have absolute "arms of steel"* ... well one arm anyway the other will still be a "tuck-shop lady arm"**.  (Yes I just flexed both arms... it is true)

So now I still want to make the ball for the Braided Kiku challenge, finish those soccer bags and make the covered journals I promised to make for my Mum before Christmas - sorry Mum but I forgot.  I would also dearly love to make the TT mystery ball as I have never done one before and also stitch the kit yubinuki.  Please someone send me a cyber slap to knock some sense into me!!!

*  Reference to 80's and 90's work out series eg. buns of ... abs of... thighs of... etc
**FYI "tuck-shop lady arms" in case you haven't heard of them are actually flabby, fatty or/with loose skin.  I'm not sure if this is a global English word or just an Aussie one.

Wednesday 17 March 2010

Year 10 Japanese Class - Session 2

Monday 15th was my second visit (and sadly last) to teach temari at school.  Now it's back to actually learning the Japanese language.  Wow! Didn't our classes just fly by??? 

Here is another shout out to all the students reading this blog. You know who you are!! I thought the classes were great fun.  We made great progress.  I am sending along a set of videos for Sensei to help you complete the design.  But there are some photos below to remind you.


Thank you for showing your interest in these temari making classes... I know we all learned something new.

Monday 15 March 2010

1st Anniversary Competition Update.

Yay!!! We have got several new public followers since our competition was announced!!!  I'm so glad you are all being loud and proud about your addiction to temari.

Thank you to all our followers for reading this blog.  You still have time to enter the draw for our fabulous prize (and odds are good for you to be the winner). 

Competition details are in this post.  Got to be in to win!!!

Sunday 14 March 2010

Yubinuki 4

I did say that I wouldn't make anymore of these rings for a while but what did I find myself making last night??? Yes you guessed it.


I had been thinking of making a bracelet size for my niece.  She is only 2 so it needed to be a little tougher than one made with a cardboard base.  I used two staggered layers of template plastic. Also seeing as it will probably get grubby it needed to be at least surface washable.  I don't imagine it will last too long, but then it only took an hour or so to make, and is only made with cotton top stitch and twill tape so it needed be a treasured keepsake.  I think my stitching is progressing quite well with the top and bottom edges quite uniform on thin one.  The twill tape was a little too thick for folding over and there is a slightly wider section accompanied with a bump where the join is.  The thickness of the fabric was good in protecting the plastic layers.  This one is made with 4 colours in a 2:1 stitch.  There are 16 sections and the circ is 15.5cm. I am sure this would look better with bias tape (no bump) but to be honest I was just too lazy (and to be really honest time stingy) to make my own bias from fabric in my stash.

Here is a comparison pic with the other Yubinuki I have made this week.


Ooh doesn't that middle one look nasty on the edges.  These are all stitched in the same way making X shapes around the ring. They only look different because the top one has two colours the middle has three and the bottom uses 4 colours.

Just in case you think I have abandoned temari making... I haven't... I have marked 3 balls this week. One each in  C8, C10 and S10.  If I get some time today I might even make some more bases for the new stitching challenge that Barb Suess is running on TC starting on the 15th.... I think I need a 24 cm base to make a braided Kiku design.  Also the same day Barb's SLS Sunflowers Class (which I signed up a bit late for) will commence... come on postman deliver my threads please!  At least tomorrow is actually Tuesday (I hear you all saying huh???) but what I mean is that while the class begins on Monday in the USA it will already be Tuesday here by then, so the postman still has two delivery days to get those little lovelies on my door step.

Friday 12 March 2010

Yubinuki #3

I finished a new thimble ring today.  I got a $10 gift voucher from my local craft store so I guessed it would be a good idea to get some more colours of the top stitch thread I use.  I usually remove the thread from the spool and card them (which is a much more efficient use of space) and I popped them all onto a big ring and off I went to the store.  I noticed while I was looking at the spool threads that there Gutermann makes a thin rayon thread that is sold on a grey spool.  It might be closer in size to the silk thread (than what I use) so next time I visit I will take down some of the thread from my kit.

The 8 left hand boxes are filled with the Perle 8 threadart colours. Some near the center are embroidery floss and some perle 12 and #40 threads I got given. The 3 boxes on the right are top stitch. I got 4 new colours today and some red bias tape.



Here is my new thimble.  It is not as well made as the first one  :(  but that's ok.  I think this time I was pulling too tightly which contributed to the waviness of the edge stitching.  It is the same size and sections as the last one. The colours are blue pink and green (not that the green shows up too well).

Here is a shot with the two new rings together. The red/orange one was definitely finished better.  That may have something to do with stitching the pink one while watching my son play and chatting to my girlfriends after school yesterday.

I am enjoying making the thimbles but will be putting them on hold for a few days so I can take an adhoc class with some previous Temari 101 students and also the second session for the school students. So I better sign off and prepare some balls.

Wednesday 10 March 2010

Yubinuki Kit arrived. YAY!!

My kit arrived from Ma Mercerie yesterday and I must say it is a lovely thing to behold.  A lovely printed booklet and two threads, a needle and a finished base that looks awesome.  I have also viewed all the photos and videos loaded by Kat on web-shots. So armed with all this new information I ventured forward to make my 2nd thimble ring.  Here it is!



I used gutermann top stitch thread (which is almost double the thickness of the silk in the kit but has a nice twist is smooth look to it and has a very slight sheen) and made a D10 (10 divisions/sections) and the base is 10.5cm circ. Of course this is too big for even my chubby little fingers but makes an excellent stand for temari.

Why didn't I just use the kit base??? Not that it makes sense actually, but I didn't want to waste the kit on my first try. So I used the kit as an example of how it should look at the beginning. I will stitch it soon.

I can see the stitches need to be more regularly spaced around the ring (but I guess this will come with practice) and I admit I did deliberately widen the space between some stitches because I saw that the gap between the sections were not exactly working out right as I got closer to the end.

My 2 final stitches are very noticeable. The top edge stitching is a bit jagged but not as bad as I expected it might be. The bottom stitches seemed to be more uniform near the edge.  The image above shows the ring topside up... I should have placed it upside down to show the 'good' side but I am subconsciously too honest for this practice and never think of it until I post the pics on the web (and by then I am too lazy to set up the camera, re-shoot, edit, and label again... see there is that darn honesty again)

I believe it was well worth the 12+ month wait between 1st and 2nd attempts at this craft. It allowed me quietly to learn from everyone else and gave me more confidence to start again when I could understand the tools and process better. If I had tried and kept failing due to my lack of understanding (and lack of available information) I would have given up completely.

So my conclusions about my 1st thimble attempt were as follows:
I had used the wrong thread
I had used a too big (thickness) needle
My base was not wrapped thickly enough (and I think it was done in paper not card stock)
My bias binding was sewn together and created loads of lumps
I don't even remember knowing that I had to pad it.

Thanks to all the other Thimble Ring makers that made this possible through your experimentation. Especially Kat for your awesome pics and videos, Debi for you Thimble Thursday blog posts, and Chloe Patricia for your tutorials and excellent idea of selling starter kits.

Tuesday 9 March 2010

Year 10 Japanese Class - Session 1


Yesterday I was lucky to be able to bring the craft of temari to 60 students at a Perth Secondary College.  I'm not sure if privacy allows me to mention the school by name, but here is a shout out to these students reading this blog. You all know who you are!!  I thought the classes were a blast. We got all of our bases made and hopefully the balls will be divided for homework and we'll be ready to stitch next week.

Regular readers may recall me mentioning the prospect of taking this class last year. At one point I had thought that we were jinxed because it had to be rescheduled twice, but now we have had our first of few sessions.  Next Monday we will have our second lesson where I will demonstrate the bi-coloured Kiku.

The pic above is a sample bowl of balls I took along for the classes.  I always take along lots of different styles and try to mix up the sizes too.  The largest ball in the bowl is a pattern I purchased from Barb Suess and always elicits the biggest wow from people who haven't seen temari before.  I can also see in the bottom of the bowl my take on a CHA Fujix ball pattern that Glenna Kipp deciphered - this pattern always gets people asking 'How did you do this?" I also took a small selection of books along for the class to flip through. These are probably actually my favorite 'this is temari and this is how you do it' books.


In this photo are the two best English language books on temari (IMHO). Barb's book is quite easy to get hold of  and the Wood book is harder to find but can be ordered through a good book store.  There is also a Cosmo book (#1 of 7 that we sell in our store) and a few other Japanese Language books (the two center books are currently out of print) and the mini book is not out of print but is hard to find... I think I got mine from an Etsy seller.

You can probably see the corner of the little baggies in the pic above. These contain samples of the core materials I use.  Rice hull (OF COURSE my FAV!!!), socks, drier lint and orts and sliced up fabric bits are all items that are inside the sample balls in the bowl.

.... and I think I can see some budding temari addicts.

Friday 5 March 2010

First Anniversary of Temari Addict Australia Blog


Wow!!! I can't believe we have been running our blog for a year now.  We have had almost 4500 visits to these pages.  Thanks to everyone for taking time out of your day to see what we're doing.

In January I promised there would be more regular posts and more pictures. So far I think we are achieving these goals with 19 posts in the first 9 weeks of this year (only 30 to go to beat the 49 posts from 2009).

Join and WIN

We want you to show the world that you are a temari addict!

To celebrate our blog's 1st Anniversary we are asking you to PUBLICLY follow our blog by clicking on the FOLLOWERS button in the bar on the left of the screen and selecting the  'follow publicly' option.

On April 1st 2010 a random draw of all our listed followers will take place and we will send the winner a sample pack of our lovely threads.  Three 50m cards of rayon thread and a one 22.8m card of metallic, this prize is valued over $20AUD. You can see colour samples of these lovely threads here.

Now here's the small print: There will be one prize drawn on 1 April 2010. Participants can only enter the draw by becoming a public follower of the Temari Addict Australia blog, this means your Avatar must appear in the followers list no later than midnight Australian WST on 31.3.10.  The draw will be random and the winner will be notified at which time they must email their postal details.  The judges decision will be final. The winner's first name and country will be announced in a blog post but no other data will be kept or published.  The colour of the prize pack may be as pictured but the winner can choose any 3 colours and any 1 metallic from the samples in our store subject to availability (see the link above).

Wednesday 3 March 2010

Yubinuki (Thimble Ring)

 
 
Have you heard of thimble rings?  They are just lovely and an incredibly intriguing proposition.  There are many web pages devoted to these miniature masterpieces (remember we're talking finger sized).
 
The Japanese word is Yubinuki and this is probably what to type into google if you want to find out more.  Most websites are in Japanese (use a translator to help you navigate the sites) but have awesome photos on them that will make your eyes simply bug out.  One blog dedicated to this art is Ma Mercerie (link #2 below) and is written in English.  I wouldn't think that people would use such beauties for their functional purpose at risk of messing up the designs, but if the scale were upsides they would make fantastic stands for temari or napkin rings or bracelets etc.

Image from  Ma Mercerie etsy site.

Today I ordered a thimble ring kit from the  Ma Mercerie etsy store. The kit has a needle and threads, and a pre-finished base on which the first 2 rows are stitched - the closest thing to having someone sitting there showing you the way.  I have wanted to make thimbles for the longest time and have even tried one but it was TOTALLY dodgy and will NEVER be seen by anyone.  Sometimes all the instruction in the world is just not enough for me (and I must say there are lots of well written tutes on the Ma Mercerie blog site).  In these circumstances I just need to see and feel the item I want to make in the 'flesh' and somehow I suddenly can process all the instructions I have read.  It was the same when I began making temari, all the books were ok to work from but until I held a mari in my own two hands I just couldn't quite 'get' it. 

So I am looking forward to making my first thimble when it arrives.  I guess I will be stalking the mailbox again... my poor postman.


Tuesday 2 March 2010

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.

Monday 1 March 2010

HHG Challenge Completed

Well I have finally finished the HHG challenge and I must say I really did learn a lot from the experience.  There are loads of lovely work being done but I must say I am rather drawn to the one completed by Jane C of World Embroideries fame.  Click here to see it

It took me three goes to get the crossover stitch right (the stitch taken to move from one shape to the next) but I am glad to say I did it.


Doing the stitch to move between shapes is not particularly difficult but for some reason I just couldn't quite get my head around it.  The pattern builds up row by row with HHG designs so I was already a few rows in before I twigged that something was funny. Note the error inside the circle.
I had another go on a C10 so I wouldn't have to commit myself to so many stitches before I could discover if something was wrong.  Lucky I did because you can see from the image below I had a rip out session and this is the thread I had to cut off the ball.  Also in this pic you can see the correctly stitched crossover on my third attempt.

Now I am confident the I worked out how to get the stitch done, I will have another go at a 32 center ball.

I still like the mistake ball and had I not pointed out the error people (those that don't  make temari) probably wouldn't pick it.  I think it speaks of 'wabi sabi' or imperfect perfection / finding the beauty in imperfect things.