Pretty in Pink

So this is the JD that I mentioned in the previous post. JD stands for Jyouge Douji, and translates to 'concurrent north-south' stitching. It is also know as the"merry go round" stitch, as the stitches zig zag up and down from half of the ball to the other. It is also one of my favourite types of temari to make.


I used the pink coloured Nordic Gold thread from Rainbow Gallery for the marking, and DMC perle #5's for the colours. It was fun and relaxing to stitch these colours.



Also, I just finished wrapping my ball for the Flower Ball Challenge over on the Temari Challenge Yahoo Group. The aim of the challenge is to create a ball stitched with flowers. I have decided to attempt to mark a C10 - it will be my first ever. Hopefully, with time and patience, it will be a successful endeavour. I have prepped a 43.5cm ball on a 5" styro base in nice dark green thread, but I still need to decide on what marking thread to use.


I'm also working on a list of possible flowers. My original idea was to do all Australian native flowers, but I think I will do a combination of my favourites, native and not. There are a few 'must-haves' on my list - Flannel Flowers and Fringed Violets, Serruria and the Giant Waterlily. The Fringed Violets should be interesting - I'll have to use a heavily textured thread to create the fringe. It should be quite effective if I can get it right. I'll try to post regularly about it, so you can see the progress too.

Every cloud has a silver lining...

This last week was a very busy one. I had a botanical drawing class on Saturday, worked the following 6 days, had another botanical drawing class on the next Saturday, and then drove to my old workplace and particpated in a silversmithing workshop. I made the bangle pictured below.

Somehow I also managed to finish off two temari, and nearly finished a third. I completed the temari for the Lunar New Year GITS, but I cant show you a picture of this one yet!

I also decided to do another version of the squares pattern. This time I decided to differentiate the colours by putting stripes of dark purple in between the blue and yellow. I learnt that this makes any slight differences in stitching stand out, but overall it's pretty good.

I'm working on a JD with kiku's on the poles, it's going ok and I'll post a pic of that one in the next couple of days!

K is for.....Kokeshi

Over the weekend, I was lucky enough to receive these lovely Japanese kokeshi dolls as a birthday gift from my sister. They are the contemporary variety, done in brighter colours and a more 'modern' look, as opposed to the traditional style. I was randomly googling temari one days and the doll in the centre of the photo popped up. I was amazed, and instantly fascinated.....she's holding a temari! From then, all I wished for my birthday was this kokeshi, and my lovely sister was thoughtful enough to order her for me (thanks H!). So now she lives here, with four of her friends, overseeing the craft/creation/cats room!