International Temari Appreciation Day Proposal

I am a night owl, often staying awake well past 1 or 2 am. Usually I spend these hours stitching, but sometimes my eyes just wont last for stitching, especially if I've already spent a few hours making thimbles.

A while ago I was doing some night surfing on the net.   I was checking out the earth calendar site  because I wanted to try to associate my posts a little more with what is happening about the place... also I thought it might inspire my temari making.  Anyway, this is how I discovered that there are only 6 days in the whole year not already slated for a recognised holiday. Then I had an idea ....

What about an international day of celebration for our craft of temari??? Hey, if doughnuts can get a day we should be able to too.

These are the dates that are not currently holidays anywhere in the world (so far as I am aware) so one of these would be great for an international celebration date for temari making/appreciation:

• 23/1
• 13/2
• 20/2
• 20/4
• 22/10
• 29/12

What day do you think is a good day? 

How could we celebrated it? So far I can think of:

• Get an exhibition at your local library or arts center.
• Host a local stitching day.
• Share temari making with someone new.
• Show your first temari (mine is scary) and your newest.
• Share a story about how you learned about temari.
• Share/swap your temari with another temari maker.
• Mention it on your blog/website (if you have one... with a special project).
• Share a photo in a flickr group file dedicated to the day.

Do you have a different/better idea? I'm sure you do. Please share it.

I am happy to coordinate/sponsor the day. I know several English speaking temari makers throughout Australia, USA, England, Canada etc but I'd also love to get the Japanese, French, Dutch, Greek, Russian temari makers (and any other country that makes temari) in on an international celebration too. Any ideas how to make it a truly global celebration?

If you have any ideas please leave a message... don't worry you wont be volunteering for anything you don't want to if you leave a message. Love to hear from you all if you have any thoughts.

I created this button and now I am trying to work out how to write the programming for it. (Not my specialty but I'll see how I go)

Just so you know....

My next post is definitely going to be about an actual temari I have stitched..... I've been so bad.

The amazing WWW and my new favourite thing.

I think that the Internet is amazing. We use it every day with out thinking about how stupefyingly brilliant it is.  Until we are without Internet access for a few days we don't realise how much we take instant global communication for granted.

Here is an example of the amazing web experiences that I came across just a few weeks ago thanks to my connections on the www.

I am a subscriber to Martha Stewart's website and I get sent a daily email with craft projects on it.  Last year I saw a little heart soap project that got me thinking about making soap. This led me to reattempt to source soap-making supplies in my local area.  I discovered, with the help of Google, an online soap supplier which linked me to the SoapQueen blog run by Anne Marie from Brambleberry.

Now Anne Marie's other obsession is cupcakes so in her links I came across Cakewrecks and Bakerella where I found the link to Cake Journal. At this site I looked through the list of favourite blogs and came across OhSugar's blog where she features the most lovely little black dress project. Thankfully she included to link to the supplier ecrandal so off I went and made my purchase of my new favourite thing few weeks ago. (ecrandal is family owned and operated by Hubby and Wife team Eric and Jamie... if you want something special visit their store)

I got an email a few hours later to say that they we about to make my cutter and would advise me of the postage when they knew how much it weighed. It was being made by hand... just for me. A few days later it was in the post with a kind handwritten note and exquisitely package with a raffia ribbon bow to top it off.

And here it is... my very own handmade party dress cookie cutter. Sitting on top of one of my reusable self made Mors shopping bags

I almost cried when I opened the parcel. My early birthday present to myself. It is so beautiful and it is all mine and I can't wait to use my cutter.

Handmade with pride in North Carolina, USA and cherished in Perth, Australia.

Say hello to my little friend

Sorry about the Al Pacino/Scarface reference but my 8yo son heard it once and now he says it constantly. (Just so you know he hasn't watched the movie... but saw a tiny extract on a 20 to 1 Famous Movie Quote Show)

I have a little reptilian friend that comes to visit me from time to time. He (maybe She) lives in our side garden near our vegetable patch. This area is fenced off so it is a perfect oasis for this little creature... safe from our dogs who probably would have tried to eat it long ago if they could.

My office window opens out to this area and, while I can't see the ground level due to a leadlight section being propped against the window, the little scratches on the glass alert me to this little guest's arrival.  Who is it? Let me show you...

A little blue tongue lizard sitting on the outer window sill. I must admit I used to freak out when I saw it scratching and flicking it's tongue at me through the glass, but now I am OK with seeing it... so long as we are on opposite sides of the glass. It is about 20-30cms long cute in the true sense of the word... ugly but interesting.


Now something nice to look at....

Here is a bouquet of flower pins stuck into the last pincushion I made.  I think they are adorable. There are 14 flowers in this bunch... not bad for a pincushion with a 2.2cm diameter.

It took a little trial and error, some stuck fingers to thumb (and trousers stuck to my leg) to get the right glue technique but now I've got it working nicely.  Thank goodness I use to be a nail technician and had plenty of Acetone on hand... or I might still be making the OK sign and wearing the same trousers 2 days later.

I'm a Flickr winner!!!

Wow! I was randomly selected to win the May thimble giveaway from Chloe Patricia's share your thimbles group. How lucky am I? I am so looking forward to receiving it and will treasure it always. 

Here is a link to the pic of the thimble from Chloe Patricia's blog.

Time for the happy dance...
those readers in the know, know what this means.... ;-)

I am not usually blessed with such good fortune. In fact the last time I won something was in the early nineties when I won a huge (I mean massively huge) gift basket at my Christmas work function. We got lots of confused and slightly panicked looks from other motorists on the way home as I tried to balance it and myself on the back of my future DH's Harley Davidson. Actually I am surprised we were not booked for being a wide load.

Trumpet fanfare! Here is the first Yubinuki

OK brace for something scary! Yes it is time to share the first thimble that I tried making more than 12 months ago.  But before I do that I will show number 14 and 15.

It is getting really cool here now and so I thought stitching in oranges and reds would help me warm up... of course it didn't warm me up but the thick socks and blanket I had over my knee did. Here is number 14.

This one was made as usual on a 6cm form which was divided into 12... but when I realised 4 colours wouldn't work on 12 division as I wanted, I divided each section which resulted in my first 24. I quite like the result. Also I hardly stabbed myself at all because I wised up and stuffed the inside with padding which allowed me better grip on the thimble. It is still a bit gappy but I think that is down to not marking out divisions until the first row was stitched so the stitching wasn't as even as it should have been.

And here is number 15. Don't you love the little flower pins? I made them because... because I just had to have some super cute pins. The thimbles are so cute but it is sad to stick boring old pins into them when they are converted into pin cushions. I made about 30 pins after dinner last night.   My hubby and his/our best friend both thought I was nuts... but they just don't get 'it'.

This one is my regular 6cm size divided in 10. I started out following Debi's recent Thimble Thursday post but when I got to the 5th row of blue I thought "hey, how would stripes look?" So that's what I did. I filled one section with the fuchsia then stitched 5 blue, 3 fuchsia and so on... Now I know it takes me about 21 stitches to fill my sections. As usual I didn't measure after removing the form I just eyed the distance. I'm getting a little better at this I think.

OK so here it is... as promised... the nastiest little thimble I ever saw!!!     Disclaimer: I cannot be held responsible of any injury caused by viewing the following images. You may experience temporary blindness, stomach upset or some other sudden malaise.  You view these images at your own risk.

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Here is the run down of errors made with my 1st thimble attempt:

I had used the wrong thread (believe it or not I used multiple strands of floss)

I the needle I used was too big (thickness)

My base was not wrapped thickly enough (and I think it was done in computer paper not card stock)

My base was also too tall so the proportions look weird

My bias binding was sewn together and created loads of lumps

I don't even remember knowing that I had to pad it so it is flat flat flat

I had never seen anything in English about thimble stitching apart from a page on temarikai so I pretty much made up what to do after seeing thimble stitching on a temari ball.

So the moral of the story??? If at first you don't succeed, try try again. And then put it aside, do some more research, find some fantastic mentors and try again.

Thanks to all the members of Yahoo's thimble ring group for helping me find my way.  Without all your hard work, support and guidance I would have stopped at making Thimble #1.

Now go and have a cuppa, a bit of chocolate and zone out... you earned it!