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.