Mini mini mayhem

We all had some time off work over the holidays and our extended family went camping. I went for the first 3 days and then my hubby switched and stayed for the next 3 days. One of us had to stay home and look after the dogs and chooks. While I was home alone I made some mini bases. Well 48 to be exact. The smallest one is 5.7cm and the largest is 8.5cm circumference. These are made from scratch using some fibre wadding as the core which is wrapped directly with overlock thread. Previously when making minis I used a 1inch styrofoam ball as the base. They are huge compared to these little babies.

Here are the first two I stitched on. The burgundy one is stitched with gold Gutermann lame thread. I think that is what it is called anyway. The code on the spool says CA02776 at the top and W331 at the bottom and it is a 50m. I think it is the right gauge for this size temari but it is a devil to use because it unravels badly. The pink one is stitched with the silk thimble thread. They are exactly the same design but seem to look different to me.

I turned the burgundy one into a bookmark but haven't decided what to do with the pink one. I took the picture above recently to share with some folk that had made email contact with me. It wasn't until I saw the photo that I realised that the design is the 3D version of the design on the silk thread box. Weird what you miss in real life but notice in a photo!

I need to find my awl so I can try to slide the pink one onto a straight hair stick and maybe make a tassel to hang on the end like the cover of the mini accessory book.

Mini Temari Hair Accessory

I think I mentioned that I am a bit obsessed with mini Temari. I am a more than surprised by this because I have steered well clear of these for the longest time.

I mostly use #5 perle cotton, sometimes use KYO rayon for stitching gifts and occasionally use #8 perle cotton. None of these IMHO look decent on a mini temari, by this I mean 8cm circumference or less. I do have a nice stash of #9 silk threads that I use for thimble stitching and it occurred to me that it might be nice on a mini temari.

In my recently purchased book of mini temari accessories they use #16 but I have no idea how this size relates to threads available outside of Japan so I decided to give it a crack with my thimble threads.

Mini accessory book released Dec 2014

Using this little book as inspiration along with my tiny threads I had a go at making my first hair stick. I wore it in my hair to my work Christmas party in December. It turned out kinda cute. I like wearing hair sticks and used to wear them a lot when my hair was longer... Maybe a reason to grow it out a touch.

Here it is in my hair, I like it even though I never wear green but seeing a I had a sparkly Charcoal outfit I though a bit of Christmas colour would be nice. I did intend to do some type of red feature near the pole, french knots or the like but then I thought it didn't really need it... And I didn't like my chances making nice compact french knots in such thin silk thread.

Sorry the image is a bit fuzzy, but if you have tried to take a photo of the back of your head with an iPhone you understand. Lol!

Temari is totally absORBing!

1975 Temari book again

In my last post I showed the first temari I tried from this book. I am really glad I got it and have at least another 10 Temari I'd like to stick from it.

The week before Christmas I had a few quick moments to stitch so I made a version of this temari featured on page 25. I was really drawn to the red and blue on white. I have usually seen this design as an all over without the thick coverage on the marking lines.

It is an Asanoha based design. I am really into these at the moment. One of those easy designs that trapped me up for a long, long time. My version is below, Christmas had me on a red and green vibe. I went a  little off the reservation with this one. I didn't like the large blue starbursts so I omitted them from my ball. Also I only outlined the red shapes in metallic. My base was a bit smaller so I changed the width of thhe bands and left out the pale blue rows.

I would have added a string to this to hang up but our tree was decorated in silver and shades of blue this year. I like it and it was quick to work up despite the design changes as I went along. Did you make new temari for your holiday decorating last year?

Temari is totally absORBing!

1975 Temari book inspiration

After my recent splurge on books I decided to start with the oldest book of the bunch. I love that I found this one, I have been looking for it for a few years, yes I am a collector of temari books and am always on the look out for older out of print books.

So the image below is from the book. It is featured on page 27 and is tucked behind another ball. I was immediately struck with the rainbow colours. I do love rainbows, they remind me that everything will be ok and sometimes I need a reminder of that.

It was a little tricky to start, it is a wrapped temari but it doesn't wrap around the circumference. It is wrapped through the centers of the six part triangles so you need to leave the pins in until the entire first layer is wrapped, after that the threads grip each other and stay in place. I followed this pattern fairly closely except that the size is a bit different so I had to change the number of rows on some of the colours a little. Also because of the size I didn't want to fill in the last row (an extra) with more red, I felt it would be too heavy so I added white. Still I like how it turned out.

 

I actually think the white helped to pop the star shapes. Did I mention rainbows make me happy? Hope this one gives you a cheery boost if you need it today! 

Temari is totally absORBing!

Resuming transmission in 3. 2. 1...

Hi!

I got an email last week asking if I still existed, lol, yes I do. I have been very quiet online as I have been locked out of blogger for a while and took a break from temari making for most of the last 12 months.

We took ourselves on a self guided tour of Europe in July and August 2014 and dedicated much of the six months prior to research and planning. It was our first time and we visited Ireland, The Netherlands, Scotland, England, France and Italy.

We missed our Southern Hemisphere winter and today sitting in 44.4C heat I realise we have had nearly a whole year of Summer Weather.

So I am venturing back into temari making after having a major buying binge on new books from Japan.

The first set of books are he Harmony series which are published by the group that publishes the Dream in Temari series, speaking of which pictured below.

These last books are written by various authors and include a second hand copy of a particularly old book published in 1977. There is also the two newest temari and yubinuki books to be released.

I am a bit obsessed with mini temari lately thanks to the little red covered book.