Spindle Practice Redux

I've had another go at the spindle design this time using 1 row less stitching and a 0.5cm larger ball.

I think it turned out to look like a bag of musk sticks in this picture. Or maybe I am just a bit hungry. The colours are much nicer in real life. I think I am going to do this one once more... but with a twist.

Do you like my tea set? It was a birthday gift from Miho and Seth. I had just washed it up after making some Genmai-Cha with Matcha (green tea with puffed rice and powdered green tea).

New temari

Perhaps new is a misrepresentation... This first temari is one that I unpicked the bands on not once but twice so this here is the final version. Still not 100% happy with it but I wanted to put it away so I could focus on other things.

This one is my 'disco' turtle temari. It is what I came up with from the TK stitch along. The pattern was discussed during an online hookup that I missed so I was really stitching blind, there was no final project image shown at the commencement of the project. I remember now how much I dislike stitching this way, call me a spoil sport but I'm not a big fan of mystery stitching... I am a road map person I need to know the destination and I'm happy to learn the land marks as I go. Of course having said that... I did learn some interesting pointers about not making assumptions and working from verbal (written) instructions alone is an important skill to acquire... I guess the reason I don't like it is because I'm just not too good at it. I've got a few green colours I'm going to add as a startbust onto open areas on the sides.

I am wondering what to do with my really huge C10 ball for the TC flower challenge. It is wrapped in mid green with treasure braid petite marking lines. I think I am going to outline the shapes before stitching the flower but I'm not sure what would look best. I might just go with woven pentagons to keep the framework simple in the hope that my stitching on each pole will pop. I also need to examine how to subdivide the pentagons to increase the number of centers so I can stitch multiple flowers in each section. I am either going to stitch the flowers in #8 perle cotton or KYO. So many choices!!!

Tonight for dinner I made basil pesto from the herb patch basil. It was delicious... or at least I think it was... Mr W said is was gross but I'm not sure if that was due to him having a 9 year old palate or due to me having a raging head cold which means I have few working taste buds.

I didn't use a proper measured recipe for it, I've made pesto before, so I just threw in garlic, pine nuts, romano cheese, EV olive oil a little salt and of course lots of basil. I guess I should have added pepper but I don't like it so my hubby can grind some on top if he wants to.
Tomorrow we are having a big clean up of the yard, sick or not, there is a Category 3 cyclone (named Bianca) heading down our coast line and it is expected to hit land at either Perth or Bunbury (about 2 hours south) so everything that could possibly get picked up and/or tossed about is getting secured down and moved away from window areas around our home. I really hate cyclones. We are lucky that it is rare to get them this far south, but this one is predicted to hit Perth directly... hopefully it will get downgraded to a Cat2 or Cat1 by the time it gets here. Fingers crossed!!! So here I go looking for the silver lining... ok... got it... I'll spend some time on Sunday stitching temari because the storm should hit about 10am and we wont be able to leave the house.

Look what I found

I have been digging through my box of temari looking for examples of C8's that I have made. I came across these ones that I haven't shared before.

This one was a little sad attempt at an interlocking band design. I think it was from TK or from Debi's notebook. Either way it didn't work out so I added the flower design as pictured and on the other end I did a strange looking herringbone flower. I didn't immortalise it in picture. I tried again on the next ball. It didn't turn out right again... maybe the woven sections were done too close to the 6 part triangle lines so the shapes didn't quite turn out as they should have.

Oh well I still like it... I was also experimenting with variegated thread... did you notice? I always wonder when it is right or wrong to use a variegated thread. These look ok.

I really like this one. It is from TK. I had this base ball wrapped in Yellow for ages! I could never figure out what to use it for. Inspiration! this design said 'yep it might just work'.

This is one I have been working on this week. Strangely enough a similar ball came up in a question this week on TC. Isn't it strange that out of all the temari makers, in all the world two people should be working the same (or at least very similar) ball at the same time.

C10 Sampler Ball

The sampler ball I've been working on is completed.  The idea of undertaking the sampler ball was to experiment with a bunch of patterns and ideas that I wanted to try out but didn't want to commit to stitching a whole temari of.  I stitched 6 designs on opposite poles and this is what it ended up looking like.  I could have done 12 designs on this ball (or changed the colour sequences) and maybe next time I do this experiment I will.

I think I am officially over this set of colours and they are going into the back of the drawer for a nice long rest. I like my experiments with the layered star and lazy daisy.  I can't say I've seen  a temari with this type of layered daisy stitch (of course I am sure it has been done) and I have seen the other patterns in pictures but some required me to work out the stitching path like the Sakasa Uwagake Kagari (top left face) thankfully I could work it out this time since learning about this stitch when undertaking the Cosmo #3 P3 project. 

My next project is to measure the Sunflower #2 class ball and mark it out for stitching... but right now I have a hot date with the grocery store before school pick ups so I better run.

Latest Temari

As you all know I have been taking Barb Suess' Sunflowers Class.  It is progressing really well, and I am enjoying it a lot.  So today I have some pics of the first completed ball.  I am glad to have discovered that I have a similar purple to the maxi-lock thread supplied in my own stash so I may make the biggie big ball in the same colours... if I can get the same stitching thread colours here.

I am loving this class and find myself salivating all day on Sunday at the prospect of the next installment the following day.  I am not surprised at all to see several names on the class data base of people who also took the Echo Stars Class early last year.  Also I noticed that there is one other Aussie.  Hi J.C. from NSW!!!

Also here is a SPOILER ALERT in case you are doing the TT March Mystery Ball.  My attempt is pictured below. I remember now that I don't really adore making spindles.  Perhaps I am too rough but they love to scrunch in on themselves at the sides (if that makes sense) when they are single.  I never (touching wood here) have this problem when making layered spindles which cross near the center.

Now I had heard of Crocus flower but had never, to my memory, seen one.  So after I stitched the ball I googled Crocus and here is what came up with.... the image below is from here and there are a bunch (pardon the pun) of really lovely flower photos at this site.  I think I will save this link to my favorites.

I think after all my current projects are finished I will make a temari and yubinuki set. I think it might be interesting to try to make a thimble to use as a stand for a specific temari.  Hmmm maybe something to think about..... (brain beginning to percolate with ideas...)

Almost Easter... lots of projects on the hop.

The postman finally delivered my thread pack yesterday for Barb's Sunflowers class.  It actually made it here pretty quickly seeing as it had travelled 1/2 way around the world to get here. He (the Postman) must think I am a Psycho because I can recognise the sound of his van pulling up and tend to rapidly launch myself out of the front door to pounce on every parcel he delivers.  He is getting much faster at crossing from van to front door and back... maybe he is worried I might miss my target and accidentally scoop him into the house.

I have completed the first week of stitching on Barb's class and prepped all the other bases.  I have started on the March Mystery Ball from TK.  (No one cyber slapped sense into me and I have now completed the High School Classes and the TC Braided Challenge)

In this image you can see the 3 purple balls ready to go for the Sunflower class.  There is the white one for the MMB the only clues I have are spindle stitch and Crocus Flower (I have no idea what Crocus is - having a black thumb) and the coffee one is for my Adult temari class where we are making a C10 floral sampler.  The blue ball is just a blank I wrapped to try out the colour... now I need to think of a design to use on it.  Lastly, the huge black yarn wrapped ball is the extra challenge ball for Barb's class.  It has a foam ball inside (not for holding a bell but just to reduce the overall weight and at least 5 cups of hull.  My stocking hit maximum density so my only option was to use 150g of yarn (this was about 675metres long = 738yards) to get the mari to the correct circumference.  I don't know what colour I will wrap this base in... I don't know if I can get the same colour here as the other 3 purple balls so I might go for something else but I will definately wait until the rest of the class is finished before I start on it.

I am continuing to stitch on the white ball today. 

Preparing for ... Christmas in July

Well being July what better time to look forward to Christmas? Last week I posted about the 27 balls I had wrapped in Christmas colours and here are a few of the photos.

As you can see I am working in Green, Red, White, Gold and Silver.

When I have completed these balls I plan to make more in 'Non-traditional' colours like Purple, Blue.

The photo of 3 temari show my latest efforts. The top left temari is the ball I was working when I wrote the last post. The bottom one I made whilst trying to keep my fingers from freezing watching my Son's soccer training and the right ball was made today. Although my boys say "Oh no! Not temari again..." stitching this one inspired my Son's little buddy to make a teeny temari today which we attached to a mobile dangle for his backpack.

It is pouring again outside so it looks good for stitching more temari tomorrow.....

Temari To Do List... a never ending challenge

Cosmo books have all arrived (apart from #7 which is currently out of print - I'll catch that one later...) and I have spent days pouring over them. I have distilled the first list, I am sure there will be many more, from the range which comes to approximately 80 temari. This will keep me busy for a good while.

I had a wrap-fest on Saturday which netted me a total of 27 balls which were wrapped in either Red, White or Dark Green thread. Can you guess that this might be the start of my christmas temari campaign? I made the balls with 3/4C of hull and used approx 500g of hull all together.

So far I have been working on Cosmo Book 1 and have completed 3 balls with a 4th in progress.

Cosmo Book#1: Top is #5, P6; R is #3 P3; L is #1 P2 (in progress)

I have made two of the design featured on ball 5 page 6. I made it the first time as a spindle (as I already had a ball with an obi on it) and then I made it again as a wrapped band. I liked how it turned out both ways, although the wrapped band method was faster. Although you can barely see it the 'in progress' ball has a dark green thread wrap (these are 3 of the 27 I wrapped on the weekend).

These are the first of my Christmas Temari. The tri-wing is also featured in the Cosmo books but a similar design is in Mary Woods book so I can't say which was the real influence... I guess I smashed both ideas together and arrived at something a little different.

Here are a few spindles I worked on back in June. They should have been in a previous post but I fried my SD card & lost all the data on it that hadn't been backed up :( Luckily it was mostly temari pics so I just had to re-shoot them. Sorry for the poorer photo quality but we haven't had a 'bright' day for a while and had to take flash assisted pics.

Happy Easter!!

Well 2009 is 1/3rd gone already. Can you believe it? I began making Easter egg shaped temari but then I decided to make a few teeny temari (1 inch) and got hooked on them. So here is the pic of the first egg shape I made and below is the box of bonbon sized balls. All but two were made by me. There is a yellow and blue asterisk star made by my seven year old and also one in oranges made by Miho. Mostly they are experiments in Kiku stitching. I tried different weaving and spacing etc to learn about how each would look. Hope you see something you like.

Yes it is true. All stuffed into a ferrero rocher box, 32 teeny temari of all descriptions. Below I have taken some closer shots of the box's contents.




Sorry the shots are taken sideways as you can see there are about 4 temari waiting to be stitched but I am amazed that the box is full. Every Tuesday our temari girls asked where are your new temari?? But I have only made a few new large ones lately.

I really like to play with Kiku and see how each pattern emerges. In the various teeny's I have experimented with Cottons in Floss, Perle 8, Perle5 and even a polyester Gutterman thread which comes 30m on a green spool (I think it's for embroidery) Miho's ball is in the picture here (bottom right in red orange and yellows)


I picked up a box of 40 Perle 8 threads from ThreadArt (in USA) and they work quite nicely for stitching this size ball. You can use a tissue as the base for this size (and make them even smaller) but I have used a 1 inch foam core and when I purchased a bag of 20 I spent a few nights wrapping them in yarn then thread ready to be stitched.

OK, did you spot the little face? I was just about to mark the ball up and my son grabbed it and started sticking pins into it. He asked me to stitch it up and this is what we came up with. We think this is how he looks 1st thing in the morning - before we wet his hair down! Also in the top right of the same picture is his 1st temari.

So the egg idea didn't take, but I did get into the chocolate thing for Easter by using the chocolate box. I have a bunch of egg shapes wrapped in the wool layer so maybe I will try again in a few months.... and be ready for next year....
Rebecca