New Temari

Following my grand plan for making 15 each of C8s and C10s in 2010... Here is the first C10.

This temari is featured in Cosmo Book 2 Page 1 Middle.  I have included  the picture from the book as an inset into the pic of my interpretation.  I thought it turned out a bit too bright when I completed it at 2am this morning... but now I have seen it a few times in the daylight ... I quite like it.  The base mari was 2cms smaller than recommended in the pattern so the hex and pentagon are a little crowded but I still like it.  My next temari is also going to be a C10 from the same book but this one will be number 12 from page 3.  I will post it on completion... it may take a while as I am currently translating the pattern into English  :-s

In other news we are about to expand the book range in our supplies store... To have a look at the range click the link on the left bar.

To Dooooooooo - well its a very long list

Today I had a spare few hours due to the heat (today we got to 43.0°C - the hottest January day on record was 45.7°C on the 31st in 1991) so I gathered all my Japanese temari books to make my temari to do list. I had previously decided to only look at Cosmo 1-7 and a few others but when I had done that I figured hey how could it hurt to look through the rest as well.....


I broke out a brand new 220 page A4 sized Journal and started taking notes of the balls I want to make. I can t believe that I filled 5 pages of the book. There are 66 temari patterns on listed on the first journal page alone - and that is just for Cosmo 1-3.

On the yahoo temari groups some members (I am one) lament the fact that many of the lovely temari featured in the Cosmo books have no pattern. I discovered today, by the process of examining all the books within a few short hours that many designs featured in the earlier books are actually explored in the later books. Also many books have very similar designs in them which lead me to question the reason for this... is it because there are so few authors or is it because there really is an actual limit to the variety of ways to place the thread on a ball??? Well I probably wont be able to answer the second guess in my lifetime.... I may not ever finish my to do list as I am sure it will be added to when the 3 new temari books arrive from Japan this week.

I also have to try out the Stitch Along balls made on TC and TT last year. I only had time to do the yubinuki obi ball in 2009 but I have printed hard copies of the instructions for all the others so these are on the to do list too.

I also made 6 new temari bases so I am ready to commence my list. Here is a picture of my base stash. It is a little on the light side (meaning a bit empty - only 12 in there) but that's ok I plan to make some more over the coming weeks. Today I was finished off a rice hull bag and it was too hot to go ripping into a new one. The larger bases are made with almost 2 cups of rice hull (28cm). The smaller sized pink one is made from wads of dryer lint (21cm). The medium size temari in red and green are (24cm)... this is the size I usually work on.  The meduim size temari fit nicely in my hand and feels comfortable to stitch on.  All good for simple division temari and less complex combination division but I feel that I need to move up to the larger size now for the C8 and C10 work I am planning for the next few months.  TC has a HHG project starting around Feb 1st and I am going to try to follow along with it so one of these balls will be set aside for that.

My goal is to make at least 30 C8 and C10 balls this year .  Next year I hope to use what I learn and move into Multis... I keep raising that bar don't I?!

My latest temari set finished

I have been working on this temari set for months trying to get it PERFECT for submission to my temari mentor.  Usually I make temari just for me and rarely fix mistakes because I like to see how my ball making has progressed (of course when making temari for other people I do want them to be perfect too).

Now I have finished these and sent them to my mentor I want to share them with you.  Top left is a S4 Masu Kagari (Square Stitch), Top right is a S6 Mitsubane Kikkou Kagari (Triwing Stitch),  Bottom left is a S8 Jyouge Douji Kagari (Concurrent North South Stitch) and Bottom right is S12 Uwagake Chidori Kagari (Kiku Herringbone Stitch).

I think this is the last time I will be stitching with this colour palette for a little while, I have been using these colours so much since July I really need a change.

I am beginning my study on C8 now and to facilitate this I have pulled out all my Japanese Temari books (ok not all of them just the Cosmo 1-7 series and a few others).  I seem to have lost my list of dream temari to make so I am going back to the drawing board so to speak and selecting balls I want to make.

Blogs I love to read.

I love to follow other crafters work and find their blogs educational and inspiring.  I always check out the list of blogs each crafter reads.  Ocassionally when I am at a loss for useful things to do (or blog about) I browse other random blogs by hitting the 'next blog' button at the top of my dashboard.  This can be a risky activity - sometimes I end up seeing something I wish I hadn't, but generally it is really fun. 

Here are a few of the temari places I regularly visit & some other places I have recently stumbled onto but really like.

Temari Train

Japanese Textiles

Little Rabbit Miniatures

Temari by the Sea

Sew Mama Sew

MaMercerie

World Embroideries

The Midnight Creamery

Ask Jo

Soap Queen

Simple Green Frugal co-op

Soapylove

I enjoy learning something new or being inspired and some of these blogs do both.  I particularly enjoy the Soap Queen blog right now.  Soap is one of my new things to make, and Annmarie (the blog owner) is really inspiring and blogs about all facets of her life and business.  I always feel recharged after I read her blog.  So next time you are searching/reading your favourite blogs checkout what author is reading.

I hope to get into making a new temari this week while my son begins his 2 week summer holiday swimming classes... So I aim to have a new temari ready for my next post. Yay!!!

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??