To Give Credit Where Credit Is Due

I thought that I would post the info for the temari kit, in case anyone might be interested in making one themselves. Also, I felt that I should credit the designer, much like any other project.

The designer is Barbra B. Suess, and I ordered the kit from her etsy shop, JapaneseTemari. She ships you the materials, which is far more than enough to make the three temari that I made. Purchasing the kit gets you membership into the Yahoo group that contains the instructions. Fabulously detailed instructions.

The pattern I used is called Morning Glory. There are a couple of other kits in her etsy store along with finished temari available for purchase, and also a couple of her books.

While my previous post showed the steps to make the temari, they weren't detailed enough to really make one just from my pictures. I highly recommend this kit if you want to give temari a try.

IHSW Update

I really enjoyed my first ISHW - and made a lot of progress, just not on what I had originally planned. Friday was my only time that I worked on Alhambra Garden, and that wasn't much because I got home pretty late. But I did manage to finish the peacock feathers at the edge, and progress is progress.

Saturday I decided to start working on a temari kit that I had ordered as part of my New Year's Resolution to try new techniques. Here's the kit as I received it. The hubby was not terribly excited when I took out the bag of rice hulls...."You bought a bag of dead leaves from the internet?!?"  I patiently explained that they were NOT dead leaves, they are rice hulls.  He then wanted to know why I ordered rice hulls from the internet. He had to graciously admit defeat with my response:

"Well, do YOU know where to buy them?"

I discovered that temari are quite enjoyable to make, and thanks to wonderfully detailed instructions, pretty easy. First you put rice hulls into a nylon.  Mental note, next time it would probably be ok to cut off the band at the top.  Tough to make that round.

Then you wrap with yarn, shaping it into the spherical shape.  The wraps were what I had the most trouble with.  You are supposed to wrap randomly, to avoid big bunches of yarn or thread in one place.  Apparently "random" does not compute in my engineer brain, so I had to settle for a wrapping pattern that closely simulated randomness. :)

Next, it is wrapped with sewing thread.

And the divisions are marked off.  Ooooo....measuring.  THAT I can do!

Then they are decorate according to the pattern, first with thread wraps.

Then patterns are stitched onto the temari. This is where I left off last night - two complete temari, and one almost done.

Lovely! And fun. And now I shall enjoy myself thinking of the next new technique to try. 

IHSW!

So, here is where I'm starting the weekend on Alhambra Garden. Unfortunately, I won't be able to be a complete hermit this time, but I'll do the best I can. :)

Cute Moose!

Alex brought home this little masterpiece this week. Love the antlers! Just looking at this little guy makes me smile too. :)

Hi!  We're new here.  Please bear with us as we set up our world.  :)