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Monday 30 August 2010

Spring!

There are still 2 days until the official start of spring. But we are already seeing changes in our garden. Here are some of the Iris flowers under the Plum blossom tree. I really love blue Iris and these ones look like they have been painted. You might remember the tree in the background from a previous post when it was flowering with temari. Not many words today just pictures.


  





There are plenty of  buds, on the tree this year, I hope we will get a really nice show of flowers. Look at that gorgeous sky. Rain is coming tonight.

We can't grow flowering cherry trees in Perth. By this I mean that they will grow but wont ever flower as it is not cold enough. We miss out on all those lovely autumn colours too but I don't mind that so much... I don't really like raking leaves anyway.

I hope to visit Japan in Spring time just once and see the sakura flowers. I have always missed seeing them when I have been there. Until then I can look forward to my garden's plum blossoms in spring. Maybe one year we will get enough flowers on my tree to enjoy our own version of a hanami party.

Friday 27 August 2010

3rd time a charm??? Yes it is!

I did it. And here's the proof. Finally!

I do really love this design. Believe it or not I am about to begin it again on a white base ball... as soon as I wrap it that is.

Thursday 19 August 2010

3rd time a charm???

A while back I stitched a ball from Cosmo 2 page 1. I really love the design. I thought I had done a good job of it and decided to make it again in paler colours.

As I laid down the final round on the new ball I realised that I had done something wrong.  I then discovered that I'd made the mistake in reverse on the first ball. Oh my goodness! How did I not see it before? Can you pick the mistake? I bet you can. Here is the sample ball from the book.


Now here is the first ball I made. Can you see the mistake?


Here is the new ball. Now setting aside the fact that the colour palette is different, can you see the new mistake?

I'm sure you worked it out. But incase you didn't, here is the problem.

Look at the top layers of star points in the original photo you will see that one side lays over the top of all the pentagon sides. In the first attempt  I managed to get most of my top points underneath (instead of over) the pentagon sides on most of the 12 star shapes.  With the second attempt I did actually think about the need to weave the top layers so you can see that most (but not all of the points are laid over the pentagon sides. I'm not sure how I missed this crucial element when I first stitched this design. Maybe it is because I tend to follow the instructions until I think I've got the idea and then put them away. I don't recall even looking at the original pattern for my second attempt. Which was a big mistake because instead I chose to refer to my own pattern notes (which didn't account for this part of the design element as I hadn't noticed it at the time) and the actual ball I had previously stitched. It was only when I noticed that the weaving was different in some sections that I referred back to the image from the book. Oh well you live and learn I guess.

I have another ball wrapped and ready to try this pattern for a third time. Here's hoping I can get it right this time! I'll post a pic when it is finished.   See this post for the 3rd ball.

Tuesday 17 August 2010

10,000 visitors to our blog!

Wow we never dreamed that we'd get 10,000 visitors to the Temari Addict Australia Blog. It is a tiny number compared to many websites but considering this blog has only run this since early last year and the special interest content it is pretty amazing.

Thanks to everyone who has visited, especially all our regular readers!! I love reading all the comments you post too. I am terrible at responding but I read all the comments.

I wanted to celebrate today and seeing as the weather is cooperating this morning I thought I'd have a special temari photo shoot in the garden.  We have a flowering plum tree in our garden and while the branches are still bare of leaves, it is starting to bud... spring is indeed around the corner. I dressed it up in some temari. Our usually quiet street had quite a number of walkers along it today. I got a few funny looks from a neighbour mowing his lawn and the leaflet delivery lady, our around-the-corner neighbour who was walking back from the corner store and a lady from up the street who is rarely surprised by the weird things that happen in our front garden.

So here is my temari tree.

I chose temari that were either stitched in sakura designs or in shades of red and green.

Look at our gorgeous blue sky this morning.

 Here are a few close up shots of sections of the tree.

Can you see the shadows on the ground cast by temari higher up. We are getting a few spring flowers now but as you can see the ground is still quite bare.

I don't usually hang my temari so I used some paper clips to gently hook into the thread wrap layer and hung them over the branches. We also use them to hang our glass baubles on the tree at Christmas so we can hook decorations anywhere along the tree branches without having to feed a thread loop from the end of a branch.

 

I would have liked to get temari all over the tree but it is in the corner of the yard surrounded by hedge on 2 sides, a pond and our small Japanese Maple tree. Besides the fear of knocking off any potential blossom buds, biggest worries were falling into the pond or dropping my temari in the dirt. So here is what the ground level looked like. Yay for plastic tablecloths and IKEA stools.


My Son's goldfish live in the pond. We had to cover it with mesh a few years ago because Ibis and Pelicans were flying over from the local wetlands to snack on the little fish and some of the bigger ones too. I know it is a law of nature that birds eat fish but try explaining it to a 4 year old who insists that those fish are his fish and not bird food. We got couldn't bear his little tears so we covered the pond with this ugly mesh.
  

Here are our little family of fish. The solid red and little red/white fish are always together.

 Our front garden is a little Japanese styled. We created it a few years ago in homage to my brother and (now) sister in law who were living in Japan. We decided that if Japan had a little bit of Australia in it (my Brother) we should have a little bit of Japan here. There is a bamboo water feature in our pond, Flowering Plum and Japanese Maple trees and a stone styled lantern with a hedge wall.


Now I'm off to stitch again so I have something ready for my next post.

Hope you find time to do something you love today!

Sunday 8 August 2010

Something in the air??

This week I have moved very slowly along. I have stopped and started and been distracted all week long. I haven't finished anything much. I remember someone else mentioned having a fit of procrastination (Jane maybe) and I must have some related bug. Perhaps it is something in the air, maybe it is due to being so over productive recently, maybe it is denial... I need begin to take action on all my big plans... or I'm going to get myself in all kinds of trouble with deadlines soon.


I built 3 shelving units for my craft room (with the help of my hubby and son) this means no more piles of boxes stacked up and the one you want being at the bottom. So everything is much more accessible. Next week I'm going to relabel all the boxes and rearrange them into categories (sewing/soapmaking/beading/temari).


I'm working a C10 temari but it is going really slowly (snails could stitch it more quickly). The design is not difficult, and I have stitched it before. This time it will be pale colours on a dark blue base and marked with blue metallic. I have also tried out some of the new goodies I got from Japan.


I made a nice yubinuki from the hardcover book and used the silk wadding for the base. I really like the outer curve of the thimble. I haven't been able to get such a nice shape just using cotton thread or felt as the padding. The design is new for me as it involves a little bit of weaving. The stitching on this one is a bit dodgy but I actually got the concept of the design and will probably make this one again. Due to the weaving it is ineligible for Mamercerie's share your thimbles this month. If I get time I might be able to make another this month, the prize on offer is lovely (as always). I will need to make up some more thimble bases, almost all of the ones in my stash are used. I can't believe it really, I never thought I'd get through them all.

Monday 2 August 2010

Oh my! Look at my Omiyage!

Yesterday I posted about my brother's family returning to Australia from their Japan holiday. They were only away a few weeks but we missed them like crazy.

After we got them home from the airport they opened up their suitcases to share the omiyage (souvenirs) they had brought home for everyone. Wow I have never seen so many things packed into so few pieces of luggage (I suspect there could be some shipping boxes arriving later with their own things inside).

This is my combination of omiyage and self purchases. How lucky am I? Thank you to Miho and Seth for all the goodies.

2 boxes of KNK thread and 12 cards of other thread. Lucky me! I love the little boxes. Luckily I have a nice box which came with a Himitsu-Bako (trick box) to store the extra threads in.

The new temari book I purchased on Amazon and Miho brought it home. There are so many lovely temari inside. Some I wish I could begin right now but I must focus on finishing up all my little projects first. Can you see the shadow of my knuckles on the lower right of the book? Today is a glorious sunny winter day 24C. I took the pics in the early morning sun out on our driveway.

 The hardcover thimble book I purchased on Amazon and a cute piggy phone dangle. Also the two watermelon thimbles arrived from Chloe Patricia. Miho also brought back 4 packages of the silk wadding Chloe Patricia uses to prepare her thimble bases... I forgot to photograph them but as they are whitish in colour they wouldn't show up well anyway. The next pic is a close up of the watermelon thimbles.

 
 Aren't they delicious looking? Chloe Patricia has started a new round of share your thimble for August. Get more details here, this month's thimble prize is gorgeous!


Here is a picture from the thimble book... what an inspiring dream image, a whole box full of lovely little thimbles.

Today was a really awesome day. I got lots of lovely sun for my early morning photo taking, met with a girlfriend for lunch, dropped off Ninja (aka the furry cousin)... which meant time for a play and snuggles with my nephew and niece (I'm still catching up on all the hugs we missed while they were away), then home in the rush hour traffic but with no major delays, easy dinner - my son's fave burritos, a sneaky cat nap on the sofa, a few wii games then sharing a book before my son went to bed. If only a fairy could come and wash the dishes the day would be complete.

Sunday 1 August 2010

Resuming normal programming... now

Sorry I have been mysteriously absent for the last few weeks. Apart from my quick note yesterday about ITAD I've been pretty quiet in the cyber world. This is because I've been really busy in the real world.

Miho and Seth (my Brother and Sister in Law) have been back to Japan on holiday. Suzanne (our mum) and I (along with help from our StepDad John) have been working on their house. We set ourselves some tasks to make their new-old house more of a home for them while they were away. We made lots of curtains, did some painting, ripped up a bunch of tile & linoleum and then laid down new stuff then we got an early start on the spring cleaning. That way Miho wont need to juggle the kids and the spring cleaning.

Mum and I had several funny moments when we spent 2 days in the toilet (bathroom) together. We chipped off the old lino floor tiles and painted the walls in there. I think we got a little crazy because I had a rare 'princess' moment when I bent over and dragged the front of my blonde hair in the wet white paint. I turned around to complain to Mum (and try to elicit some sympathy) when I saw that she had done the same thing but 1000% worse with her curly dark brown hair. The whole side of her hair was covered in white paint and she was working so hard she didn't even notice. I laughed so hard I had to stagger down the ladder and sit on the floor for about 15 minutes. I'm still laughing about it. Partly because my only annual princess moment was wasted on something which was so quickly proven to be like a grain of sand at the beach and partly from the image of the Mum's painted hair.
It was lovely to spend some one on one time with our Mum. We laughed, shared stories and generally caught up on stuff as we worked. It was really fun and the lucky home owners appreciated (and hopefully liked) our efforts.


They got home this morning and brought us all some lovely omiyage (souvenirs). I got 2 boxes of KNK silk thimble making thread and 12 cards of another brand, and they brought home the new Temari book and Hardcover thimble book too. Lucky me! Lucky me! Lucky me!
 
Tomorrow when I go over to Miho's home to return the furry cousin, I am stealing their passports so they can't go on another holiday for a while... we really missed them.
 
Sometime this week I will get my in progress temaris finished and make a thimble with my new book and threads.  Oh the possibilities!