Recycled Hazelnut Temari

Last week I wrote about making some ice-cream desserts for Christmas. One of the recipes called for skinned hazelnuts, and while I would ordinarily throw the removed skins away, this year I decided to make a temari out of them. I placed the skins into a freezer bag with some rice hulls and wrapped it with a ball of wool. I was watching a movie while wrapping, and it must have been particularly interesting because I used the whole ball of wool. My base mari ended up having a 33cm circumference. I chose a navy blue thread base and C10 division. Last year (09) I purchased some braided Kreinick threads for $2 a spool, a local supplier was clearing their stock so I scooped up a whole bunch. I selected 5 glistening metallics and stitched a simple star in each face. My camera can't really pick up in the sparkle of the thread in such a small image but if you click each picture it will pop out a little larger to show more of a 'real life' view.

I liked how it turned out so I did it again using Sakasa Uwagake Kagari. This ball was slightly smaller at just under 30 cm. Again I put the points of the stars into the pentagon corners.

I really enjoyed the effect of both those designs and I wondered if I turned the points of the stars (from the first ball) onto the short lines of the pentagons whether I could make also stitch 6 pointed stars (similar to the second ball) over the 6 part triangle areas. Would it look too busy? If I kept the same threads for the 5 point star what thread should I use for the smaller 6 point ones? It thought on these questions overnight and then decided to just go for it, if the ball turned out to me a big sparkly mess it didn't matter because the threads I was using was inexpensive. I kept the same threads for the 5 pointed star and chose 5 variegated Krenick #8 braided threads (that I scooped up at the same clearance sale) for the 6 point stars. The base mari was 36cm. I spent ages trying to lay out the colours on the 6 pointed stars so no colour appeared twice around the border of any 5 point star. Yay for coloured head pins.

I didn't plan to make a set, but this so often happens with temari making. One question leads you to another and another...  On the upside of this experimenting, I think I have cracked a pattern by Barb Suess in the new Japanese language Temari book released earlier this year 7837701101 彩りのてまり歳時記 Coloured Temari: Seasonal Events (Irodori no Temari - Saijiki) featured on top of pages 52+53. I hadn't been able to turn the drawing in my head to work out how the pattern was laid out between the two main designs. But I had an AHA!!! moment as I stitched the first ball in this group. I wonder if Barb heard my very large penny dropping here in Perth. Things are always so obvious once you get 'it'.

I almost used all the thread on all 10 of the Kreinick spools... I stitched almost 100 meters of thread on these 3 balls. I've never really thought of it before, I usually think in time rather than length of design thread consumed... This made me wonder if I laid every piece of design thread I have used since I began making temari end to end... how long would that thread be? If I did the same in the yarn wrap or thread wrap how long would that stretch? I wonder how many years (and temari) it would take until I had used enough thread to stretch from here to Sydney (Approx: 4110km)? To the JTA museum in Tokyo (Approx: 7867 km)? Around Australia (Approx: 59,736 km)?

My boys like the third ball, I am partial to the second - in spite of the open spaces. What do you think?
Happy stitching.