Tuesday, August 23, 2011

contemplation — "maritime stars"


Contemplation is the highest form of activity.
—Aristotle

This temari is my color variation on a design by Barbara Suess, "Maritime Stars" (her original is in blue, white, and black). It combines kiku stars (six of them) with the rest filled in with an "all-over" swirl. It's a combination of techniques that I first learned with the five-petal kiku herringbone and Suess's "Oliver Twist" pattern.

This is the first C8 (combination 8) division I have done. Creating the division wasn't hard, but the stars need to be perfectly placed and executed and that seems to require some feat of engineering that I have yet to fully understand. Still, it is a fairly forgiving pattern, maybe just because it is so nice to look at . . .

Thread wrap in very dark brown; no division lines (they're removed partway through the process); embroidery in light blue, dark chocolate brown, and three more shades of brown each one shade lighter. The quote by Aristotle is in the bell box, with twelve brass rings. Circumference: just over 10.25 inches / 26 cm; diameter: 3.25 inches / 8 cm. Completed 22 August 2011 (no. 018).




No comments:

Post a Comment