red and gray swirl

Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.
— Henry Miller (1891–1980)

A swirl temari, a gift for the new year.

Silver gray thread wrap; S4 / S10 division variant. Embroidery in dark red wine. The quote by Henry Miller is in the bell box along with 7 brass rings. Circumference: 10.25 inches / 26 cm; diameter: 3.26 inches / 8.27 cm. Completed 15 January 2012 (no. 087).

what i don't understand

Every day I make an effort to go toward what I don't understand.
— Yo-Yo Ma (1955– )

Another 2012 TAST Challenge temari — week two's stitch is the buttonhole stitch (view my first attempts here). I started with the quote, and sketched designs until I found a way to use the stitch to create a visual expression of one way I feel about classical music — and cello music in particular.

I created an S8 division but didn't tack it; I used the vertical guides to align the bases of the buttonhole rows and the ends of the stitches. My stitching needs a lot of practice, especially gauging how the tension pulls on the threads and "mis-aligns" the straightness the top and bottom of each block. I think an S10 or S12, with shorter and denser stitches, would be more successful.

Thread wrap in chocolate brown; no division lines; embroidery in four shades of olive browns and greens, gradated from one end to the other. The quote above by Yo-Yo Ma is in the bell box along with 7 brass rings. Circumference: 10.25 inches / 26 cm; diameter: 3.26 inches / 8.27 cm. Completed 11 January 2012 (no. 088).

Update 20 January: I finished a second "buttonhole" temari, with narrower rows, which you can see here.

TAST 2012 - week 2 - buttonhole

 

Week 2
Buttonhole Stitch

If you're wondering what this is all about, you can read the TAST Week 1 post here. This week the challenge is the buttonhole stitch. I managed to both practice it on my "temari sampler" (above) and complete a finished temari using exclusively the buttonhole stitch (below).

Click here to view the complete post about & see more photos of the finished buttonhole temari, "What I Don't Understand."

Below are my first practice stitches, and some variations of stitches that are in the buttonhole family. I like this stitch; again the temari as a canvas presents unique challenges, particularly adjusting the tension of the stitches correctly so as not to pull the threads too much, and obviously I need lots of practice.

 

buttonhole stitch

 

more buttonhole

buttonhole wheel

buttonhole wheel fail - looks like a nautilus

attempt at feather stitch

rosette of thorns

up and down buttonhole

water lilies (dig and delve unceasingly)

It's on the strength of observation and reflection that one finds a way. So we must dig and delve unceasingly.
— Claude Monet (1840–1926)

I'm hoping that whenever possible, I'll find ways to play with and employ the stitches I'm learning in the 2012 TAST Challenge to create temari — even if very non-traditional and experimental. This week's stitch was the fly stitch, and I was inspired to use it like an impressionist brushstroke to make my interpretation of Claude Monet's water lily paintings.

Hours and hours of layer upon layer of the fly stitch create this temari.

Thread wrap in light bluish-green (celadon); no division; embroidery in about 12 shades of blues, greens, violets, and in-betweens. The quote above by Monet is in the bell box along with 7 brass rings. Circumference: 9.75 inches / 25 cm; diameter: 3.1 inches / 7.95 cm. Completed 9 January 2012 (no. 086).

Sold to benefit Kiva.org.

TAST 2012 - week 1 - fly stitch (Take a Stitch Tuesday)

This year I'm taking part in the TAST 2012 Challenge — Take a Stitch Tuesday — being held on the blog Pin Tangle. Each week a new stitch will be introduced and anyone participating can learn it or if they already know it take it further; take a photo; then post a link to their photo on the Pin Tangle site.

Since everything I know about embroidery I learned from stitching temari, I know very little. Herringbone. Herringbone variations. Anything else? I'm not sure. So, this will really add to my vocabulary & tool box, so to speak.

While I expect most people participating will be stitching on more traditional materials, I am of course working on a temari. A temari "sampler." Last night I made the largest temari I've ever made — 3 cups of rice hulls in the center, whereas I usually range from ¾ to 1¼ cups. It's 13.625 inches / 34.5 cm in circumference; 4.33 inches / 11 cm. It's bigger than a soft ball. A little larger than a grapefruit. (And I'm considering this temari no. 85.)

I think stitching on a temari will present some unique challenges — there's no "back" of the canvas to access, it's curved, and the threadwrap comes into play a lot in how the threads are pulled by the stitches (or how the stitches are pulled by them). Especially on a temari this large a thread can end up over the end of a stitch, which you can see a little in my photos. I don't think this would be as much of an issue on a smaller temari, where the stitching area would be more convex.

Week 1
Fly Stitch

Gray: top - single fly stitches, and below is a stacked "branch" of them; top green: single stitches in an attempt to make a scale pattern; bottom green: the closed fly stitch, looks like [part of] a leaf.

plaited fly stitch

left: threaded fly stitch; right: whipped fly stitch

Finally, stacked stitches to make a little ferny thing.

Update, 9 January: Click to view my post about my completed "fly stitch" temari.

next year's words await

For last year's words belong to last year's language and next year's words await another voice.
— T. S. Eliot (1888–1965)

Another temari emplying uwagake chidori kagari — braided kiku herringbone — like no. 74. I like this stitch. Each pole has two four-pointed interwoven kiku flowers; at the inner petals each round picks up just the round before it (traditional kiku herringbone wraps around all the previous rows).

Thread wrap in silver; S8 division in matching #8 DMC perle; embroidery in six shades of avocado greens, dark to very light. The quote above by T.S. Eliot is in the bell box along with 12 brass rings. Circumference: 10.325 inches / 26.3 cm; diameter: 3.28 inches / 8.37 cm. Completed 3 January 2012 (no. 084).

Sold to benefit Kiva.org.

exhibit, interview, & giveaway

This week Kumo Temari has the good fortune to be featured on the blog EtsyStalker.com. You can read an interview with me and enter to win temari no. 83, To Rise Above Little Things. Just click here to go to the post — all you need to do to enter the giveaway is leave a comment; the winner will be chosen on Sunday January 8.