#temari guidelines

One Temari Ball design treated three different ways. The top ball is LAYERED - first the orange petals are stitched and then the yellow is stitched on top it it.

The second ball is INTERLOCKED; the orange layer is stitched down and then the yellow layer is stitched, but half of the yellow stitches go under the orange.

The third ball is INTERWOVEN; this uses two needles, one for each thread. You go around once with the orange, then once with the yellow and keep repeating the layers one at a time until the finished result is achieved,

Retro-stitched Temari

This ball did not come out the way I envisioned it, so in a previous post I did some digital mock-ups about where I chould add more white stitching.

As anyone who sews - especially clothing - will tell you: It is better to make alterations and changes BEFORE something is finished, rather than try to make changes to a finished piece.

So, I decided to add the row of white stitching between the rows of the two shades of navy - as best as I can under the circumstances. What a difference the row of white makes! If I were to make another variation on this ball, I would probably sew two rows of each color from darkest to medium to light, and then stitch the crossing ‘X’s’ in the lightest color. Unlike counted cross stiching - where as long as you pull the thread through the appropriate holes you will always end up with a perfect ‘X’ - stitching on the thread cover of a temari ball is quite different. I had to fit the white in-between rows of previous stitching - so sometimes temari stitching (kagari) is more about laying and curating the threads than anything! This is also why I keep long thumbnails - to gently pull the rows apart.

Re-Worked Temari - Spider Web with Dewdrops and Spider.

The Swirl Family Collection

Here are the five temari in this series of renzoku tagari temari that I have been stitching. The topaz on navy one in the center is a larger size, but now that I have figured out what I hope is the solution to correctly creating the alternating swirl (see previous blogging post), I may not have to use a larger ball base.

Please see my archive for more temari balls and other things I have stitched!

Below is a two-color temari, but all I have is this picture - AND NO INSTRUCTIONS! The white crosses over from star to star. We will put off trying to figure that one out for a while.

Hito Hude Gake Temari - 12 Centers

It means 'stitching in a continuous path'.

The yellow starts as a star at the North Pole, then spirals through 11 pentagons, stopping at the South Pole in one continuous pass. Then you start the second color as the star at the South Pole and finish the other missing parts of the stars as you spiral back up until you return to the North Pole, where you start the first color again. Like everything connected to temari, the prep for this design took almost as long to prepare than the actual stitching of the design. I also discovered that the colored diagrams in the chapter have incorrect color placement - you can't miss it when two diagrams next to each other showing you the progression don't match! Also as usual, the directions leave a lot to your imagination - and experience - to fill in the blanks. This is not something you want to rip out unless you absolutely have to.

This is canary yellow and a sort of puce-ish color (called Dark Christmas Red!) against navy. I would have used a dark bright pink, but I didn't know if I had enough to complete the design, and I can't buy more of the color at JoAnn's because they don't carry it! DMC has a flat $7.35 shipping rate no matter how much or little you buy, and coming up with a $30 thread order to get free shipping is not something you can do every day. So, i made do.

Same Sunflower temari design stitched in the same colors, but one is layered, one is interlocked, and one is interwoven. This is the simple manipulation of elements of a design that helps create endless variations in any pattern. Interweaving takes the longest since it requires two threaded needles and one row of each color is done as a single round each time.There is going to be a quiz after! LOL!

Wirkami, or Swirled Temari #2

Renzoku Kagari or Wirkami Temari - in Topaz over Navy blue.

Before I started this next temari in the continuous stitching series, I decided that I was unhappy with the way the metallic gold on navy had come out - in spite of instructions from two sources.I decided that the problem is ORIENTATION. The illustrators draw all the schematics from north to south, even when you are stitching east to west. This is fine for something in a frame like counted cross stitch, but a temari is moved either clockwise or counter-clockwise, so a drawing where everything is always shown as north to south leads you into trouble. I finally found a schematic and copied it and cut the images apart and re-oriented them to how the stitcher would be taking the next stitch -and the results are amazing!

Original schematic

Schematic oriented to what the stitcher sees when making the stitch.

MAJOR DIFFERENCE!