I’ve been sucked into the Instagram world – so many beautiful pictures…. Join me here: carriefluter: if you care for the odd silly dog, knitting or family life photo and let me know your link too!
See intro here. See supply list here. See part 1 here. See part 2a here. See part 2b here.
Ready? OK – Take your wrapped and marked ball, a longish sharp needle and some metallic or perl cotton (this is now your marking thread) that is a different colour from the sewing thread wrap. Take your marking thread and measure 5-6 wraps around the ball. Cut and thread the needle with it. Put a small knot on the other end of the marking thread. Insert the needle into the yarn wrap layer about 1.5″ away from the North pole and bring the needle up directly beside the North pole pin. Pull the thread all the way through, burying the knot into the yarn wrap so it is now attached to the ball. You can leave the needle on or take it off and re-thread in a minute.
From the North pole (and always keeping the white pin facing you – DO NOT TURN THE BALL AS YOU WRAP) take the marking thread and wrap it around the ball away from you, staying to the LEFT of the obi pin, the left of the South pole pin, and again to the left of the matching obi pin to complete a full wrap around the ball all the while the North pole pin has been staring at you the whole time – like this: (don’t trust the photo entirely – it’s a bit of an illusion – the thread is on the left side of the pins, I just couldn’t get a good angle whilst juggling the ball and my phone to take the photo. See how the thread is now headed to the right? Take that thread and now move to the next set of pins to the right and wrap again always staying to the left side of the pins, wrapping around an 1/8 of a turn at the North pole pin which keeps the thread in place.
Go all the way around the ball – there should now be 8 marking lines around the ball and where you meet up where you started, one thread will now appear to be on the wrong side of the pin, because you’ve stayed to the left every time, you’ll have one spot where the marking threads meet on the other side of the pin – this is correct. Tack down the marking thread at the North pole 4-5 times catching some of the sewing thread to keep it secure, and on the last stitch, take the needle out an inch from the pole through the yarn wrap and clip it (very carefully) off.
Just as you began the thread when we started, with a small knot and hiding it in the yarn wrap at the North pole – do the same thing at the South pole and tack that pole down as well finishing the same as the other pole. Then, when you’re done (leave all of the pins where they are – you should have something that looks like this:
There you go for today, I’ll have a shorter post up on Friday for how to add the obi and secure the intersections of the marking thread. Next week we embroider the ball!
I’m enjoying watching this process! Thanks for posting 🙂