Maki Kagari AFL Temari

I didn't actually plan it at the start, but this is how it turned out. Last week I made a bunch of balls to compare the Cup measurement technique for filling temari cores.  I had always suspected that all cups were not equal and now I have proven it as far as rice hull and dryer lint anyway....

So as I had plenty of smaller sized balls I ended up making three balls made for one TK Maki (wrapped band) Kagari stitch along this week. I have also learned to mark a C8 by eye instead of measuring and have been practicing this new skill. I made several balls without measuring when I first took up temari making but I decided it really wasn't scientific enough as a techique so I stopped.... I bet with a bit more practice I could get quite good at this... It does save time with not needing to pin but then I am slower at actually wrapping the marking lines this way so it is probably no quicker just now.

The first one (top left in WCE colours) was wrong... due to an assumption of the instructions rather than the actual instructions. I really like it anyway. The second one (front in Dockers colours) was right... thanks to actually reading and following the instructions... and the third one (top right in Magpie colours) was just me wanting to cover all the marking lines.

In our family we support 3 different AFL teams (Australian Rules Football) Two teams are from Perth and the other is from Victoria.  It is almost the end of the season now and there is only 2 more weeks of finals until the grand final which is held on the last Saturday in September. Sadly, my team the West Coast Eagles (WCE) have been eliminated from the finals... OK they didn't qualify... alright they came last in the competition. Fremantle Dockers, my son's team, are in the finals for only the 5th time ever... OK they have only been in the competition since 1995. The Magpies aka Collingwood, is my husband's team. They are the team most people love to hate, established in 1892, they have only managed to win one AFL grand final... OK they did win 13 grand finals in the predecessor of the AFL which was the VFL. My worst scenario is that Fremantle and Collingwood will face off in the 2010 AFL Grand Final. That will be a terrible 100 minutes of viewing in our house followed by weeks of crowing/crying.

So like our recent federal election (held on August 21, 2010 for which we still have no result) choosing a team to barrack for in the Grand Final this year is more like eliminating the teams you least want to see playing until you reach just two teams... then deciding which of those two you would be least crushed to have win.

All this spot stuff is fun but actually pretty irrelevant, with major flooding in Pakistan, and on the east coast of Australia, people getting hit in major storms down the eastcoast of USA and a huge earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand. I hope wherever you live you're safe and dry today.