monday, monday – temari part 2a

See intro here. See supply list here. See part 1 here.

OK! So – here’s what we’ll need today:

Ignore the stuff in the back, you will not need a razor blade or weird cork tubes. My daughter is an oboe player and this is her reed making desk. It had the clearest space to take the photos today. The rest of the house needs a shovel taken to it.

Choose a spot to be the top of the ball and place a pin with a white head in it. This will be your North Pole. – get it? White for snow so you’ll remember it’s the North pole…. Take a 1/4″ strip of paper that will wrap  exactly (trim the end to match beginning to end) around the circumference of your ball. Fold it exactly in half and snip the bottom right corner off so that when you open it, you will have a V notch in the paper.

In the above photo, you can see how I trimmed the paper strip to meet end to end. You will need to try the paper strip on several different turns around the ball, because it’s most likely not exactly round. Don’t drive yourself crazy pick the happy medium, it won’t matter a great deal for this ball. This is a terrible attitude, and if you decide that you would like to become a Temari master, don’t follow my advice. If you’re just looking to make a pretty ornament for the tree – carry on.

Using the V notch, now find your South Pole using a different coloured pin. You will need to test several wraps around the ball to find the median place to put this pin, and will probably need to adjust its spot a few times. Again – best judgement, don’t go crazy. If this were any other pattern, you would have to be much more exact but for this one, within a few mm is good enough.So, now you should have your North and South poles marked. I’ll post part 2b on Friday as I don’t want these posts to be too huge. If you’re loving this and need more, more, more – please consider purchasing this book by Diane Vandevoort – How to Make Japanese Thread Balls – Beginner – this book and a few others were instrumental in teaching myself basically how to go about it. (She has no idea who I am, and I have absolutely no vested interest in recommending her book) Her diagrams are clear and with a bit of puzzling over, the directions can be followed.

Yeah. I had a great weekend. We went to the Turner exhibit at the AGO and took a photo outside. I was supposed to be “fierce” and she was eccentric – but I laughed too hard to have the right expression. As you can see peeking from the bottom right, the Irish Hiking scarf has found a good home. I’m so fortunate to have wonderful friends, both old and new who bring me great joy.