The last lesson has been completed WOOT WOOT. 

This lesson is about a continuous path of stitching. In Japanese is it Hito Hude Gake which is translated to One Stroke of the Brush. In brush painting the brush is placed on the paper and not lifted until the entire design or calligraphy character is completed. In Temari, it means that one thread defines a design in a similar way.  IF this design were worked in one color, it would be one continuous thread - starting at the North pole a pattern stitched at the starting pole and then, without ending off, moved to the next section, etc until the opposite pole is reached and then the stitching direction is reversed and it worked back up and around until the starting point is reached! That's a long thread!

The temari to make for this lesson is on a C10 with Kiku's on each center. One color is used for stitching North to South and another color is used for stitching South to North.  Since learning to make the transition points from one center to another is tricky I decided that the "bonus round" would be worked first.  

For the pre-bonus round, I worked a similar pattern on a C8. This in the pictures with the green mari wrap and the orange and yellow threads. The stitched pattern is a double kiku which gives it a sunflower look. My mari was smaller than what was specified in the pattern instructions and my stitch spacing was too far apart in some areas; thus some of my points ended up not being even from pole center to center. 

The C10 temari was wound with a dark purple thread and then I used a lavender and bright green for the stitching. My transitions were better but I think the lavender gets washed out by the green. IF I do this again, I would wrap the mari in lavender and use a dark purple with the bright green for the stitching

The last temari I made for lesson 11 was a "Plum Blossom" on a C8. The lesson showed a Plum Blossom on a C10 but it was not required to do. Well, being the over achiever that I am I decided to try it and use my fancy Japanese threads - in pinks so it really looks like a plum blossom flower.  Note: Elisa of Scotland has a Victoria Plum tree in her back garden so I have seen pictures of those blossoms and so I was aiming for soft pinks transitioning to almost white.  

Since the Japanese thread is thinner than the Size 5 perle cotton I mostly use, I made the mari a bit smaller and used the thread doubled in the needle.  

This was certainly a challenge! The thread from Japan is a polyester, which gives it a wonderful shine but it loves to twist and knot so I was constantly de-tangling it. If I had taken a stitch and not realized the thread was twisted I had to pull the threads back out and straighten them so the two threads would lay flat, next to each other and also not bunch up where the stitch was made. I also uses A LOT of thread. I used for shades of pink but I used up 1+ cards of the white, there are 30 meters of thread on a card. 

When I was almost done I could see I should have spread my stitches out a bit more as there were gaps at the center points of the pentagons (where the pink triangular petals meet) so I did some extra fill at then end but still left a little gap at the very center since there really wasn't room along the sides to lay more threads. 

I am glad I did it but I should have done it once in the perle cotton to make it easier - Oh well, live and learn.

Lesson 11 YIPPEE, I am in the home stretch. 

But before we get to the pictures from this lesson, there is a picture of ALL the temari I have done so far, for the certification - the temari for the patterns I have to submit plus my bonus round and some where I did the temari multiple times because the first or second was wrong.   There are 40+ temari in the picture and that works out to be 1+ per week because we are in week 36 as of this post. Lesson 12 will have 1 maybe 2 more temari and then I can work on the submission document. 

This lesson's topic was interlocking shapes and getting consistent shapes too. The first patter to be completed was Puzzle Pieces on page 151 of Temari Techniques; it is a C10 with interlocked pentagons and diamonds. Then we were to do another few temari from a suggested list. I went rouge and decided to make a series of temari based upon the first one using other divisions. I then did a C6 with squares and triangles, a C8 with squares and diamonds, and a 20 face mari made from a S12 that had pentagons, hexagons, and diamonds. All 4 mari used similar colors and they all varied in size.

Then I did a fun bonus round, and interlocking all over design. For this last one I did not use Perle Cotton but threads from the Japanese assortment I bought earlier in the year.  ​I included many process shots so you can see how the final design is the result of layering the stitching

Lesson 8 is continuous path stitching which is a follow on to the Flax Leaf from lesson 7. Lesson 9 is for stitching a thimble ring pattern (a.k.a yubinuki) for the obi.  And I finished lesson 8 and then just went into lesson 9 as that was what I have been waiting to do for a year when I first learned this was a required technique - because I also stitch actual yubinuki thimble rings!!  

So first up are pictures of the temari the continuous stitching which I will admit I rushed through and my teach pointed out that my stitching accuracy was not as good soooooo, it would be best if I did one of the two temari over. Which I did this past week.

For lesson 9, yubinuki obi, there was only 1 temari to stitch but I decided to do an extra temari as a bonus round. The stitching of the edge of yubinuki is different for a temari obi than it is for an actual yubinuki. Because of this, I started a practice temari to work on the edge stitch. I was almost done when I then set it aside as my stitches were finally consistent in tension, spacing and level at the top and bottom. I then started the temari again but I worked slowly and carefully and it came it really well. Then I did a bonus temari with a similar pattern but different colors.

I have sent everything off for review and I will start Lesson 10 sometime this week

This week I started to work on the last pattern write up that is required as part of the certification. A few weeks ago I was looking for something to stitch and write up and it had to be a C10 design. I looked through my books for inspiration and I came across a pattern with a stitch I had not seen before. It is a actually called a reverse kiku (herringbone) on a triangle shape. I have since fallen in love with this stitch. For a C10, I stitched it on the 6-part triangles and which framed the pentagon. I used 5 different shades of green and worked to have each of the 5 greens only once around the pentagon. I then chose 6 shades of blue and stitched a kiku in the pentagon and, again, worked the blues so the adjacent pentagons all were different shades.

I am now planning another temari with nothing but reverse kikus! 

Lesson 7 is about a stitching pattern called Flax Leaf. It is used to fill the shapes created from the division marking lines.  It can be done with simple markings (first pictures) or complex (second picture is a C8). A pine needle design is stitched and then the ends of the pine needles are stitched to the outer shape. 

As I have said in other posts, this level of certification requires me to write up 6 patterns.

And I have completed my fifth pattern; a C8 based upon a pattern done by a FB friend in the temari group I belong to. She did this for a family member and after she posted the pictures, someone else in the group asked about the pattern and there wasn't one so I wrote it up. The diagram took 3 tries in Adobe Illustrator so it looked correct and conveyed the correct information. Then the write up took 4 versions to edit it down to one page per the JTA requirements. 

This pattern is called Stained Glass Roses.

This lesson covered (literally) all over designs. These two temari are the same patter but when stitched with different colors, they look very different. They are both marked as a C10 and then continuous starss are stitched around/over the pentagons.

I joined the New Braunfels Art League several months ago as a general member and not as a displaying member. A displaying member is juried into the gallery which means your work is always on display but you must also volunteer for 8 hours each month. Now; if those hours were in the gallery it would be an issue for me, right now because I still have a day job. I have yet to find out if I could do those hours in some other way like working on the website or social media? Being a general member means I can put my work in Gallery Shows (for sale) and I only have to volunteer a few hours, during the show which would be easier for me.

Well, last month, the art League posted that they were having a small show in June to raise funds since the gallery had been closed due to the pandemic PLUS general member did not have to work the show!  I downloaded the show info and found that I can submit 3 pieces of work; time to plan the Temari I would need to stitch!

The first one I selected is one of my favorites the Rainbow Ribbons on a C8; then the Wishing Papers on a S6 and lastly the Fall Leaves on a C8. I had three weeks to get them ready which meant doing one per week; and I had to take my time so I could avoid mistakes or redo one if it did not turn out well.

I finished early this week which gave me a few days of breathing room.   

I will take them to the gallery next week and each Temari will be sold with a base for it to sit on, along with a info sheet on what is a Temari as I figure that most people around these parts won't know what they are. The info sheet will also cover how care for it and that it is NOT a toy.