Sharing temari with our community

I have finally hit maximum density with my temari storage space. Like most temari makers I have so many temari balls around my home, they fill vases and bowls, sit on stands and are tucked away into boxes and drawers.

To free up some space I have donated a box of temari to my son's school. You might think that is a strange thing to do but at my son's school the children learn Japanese as their second language. As far as I know the other schools near by learn Italian and Indonesian. So we are really lucky that our school has Japanese because it fits our family dynamic to a tee.

The Japanese classroom has moved into a different building this year and when I visited the room yesterday it looked very big and a little empty. I offered the temari to help decorate the room and to be used (or given away) by the teacher however she sees fit.

I added simple hangers to all of them and added a tassel to all the smaller balls to make them seem a little more special. Here is a picture of most of the temari, they wouldn't all fit on the tray, ready to be packed up into a box.

When I stitch temari I am very still and focused, I can feel everything around me slow down and stitching seems almost like meditation. I guess that a little piece of my soul passes into every temari I make. The temari I chose to donate have been made over a wide span of time. Some designs were made when close to when I started making temari, like the Dogwood designs, others were experiments along the way and a few have been made just recently been stitched, like the black and white one. If I had to guess I'd say it probably took me about 3 or 4 months in total to make all of these balls - and I enjoyed every minute of that time.

I was a little surprised how hard it was to put them into the box. Boxing up 26 at once seemed like a big part of myself to give away (like when you make a gift temari but keep it for yourself and need to make another to gift away), but I hope these will brighten the Japanese room and bring happiness to the everyone who visits. I know that they will be appreciated and I am so happy that I can share them.

Also as an added bonus I have some more space to make new temari and my DH can't complain that there is no room for them... for a while at least. A win/win situation I am sure you would agree.

Happy temari making!