Temari

Lately I've been so occupied with family/home life and have had so many occasions that have led me to making crafty gifts for loved ones that I haven't had the time to make anything new for the shoppe in ages. Much of the time I've been busy at work on some art project that I have to keep secret for gifty purposes, but these are a couple of new(ish) things I can share. I started this rose ball and finally finished it just before Christmas, but am only now finding the time to photograph and list it.

This is another ornament that I just finished as a 1st birthday present for a friend's daughter, The Bears and I, kids in tow, attended her party today. It was crazy and crowded, but the kids had fun.

New items in Shoppe!

So, I'm starting to list my tiny embroidered ball earrings in my shoppe. This is my first foray into a wearable item and I'm pretty excited about it.

I have my sister, celenajustine to thank for the idea. When I first started embroidering ornaments, I wanted to experiment with all different sizes and bought some tiny styrofoam balls just to see what would happen. I made my first one and it was harder than I thought it would be! The smallness makes it more challenging to keep the base thread wrapping from slipping off while you wrap it and your hand cramps really bad from having to tightly hold such a little ball for a prolonged period.

My sister sees my frustrating effort, loves it, and, of course, states that she wants earrings. Aaargh. Of course my sister not only wants more, but she wants matching pairs to boot! But seriously, I think it's a neato idea. I've never seen anyone else who makes them. (Correct me if I'm wrong, please!) Plus, with how many amazing temari artists there are out there who make me look like a total amateur, it's nice to feel like I'm doing something unique with the technique.

I also have KatinkaPinka to thank in part for this new product coming together. I had already bought some earwires for my hypothetical earrings, but when I purchased some lovely felt ball earrings from dear Katinka, I knew that the kidney earwires were the way to go. I inspected them and asked her a few questions, she was wonderful as usual! So, with a little help from my friends, I am now an earring monger. Never thought that would happen. But then, I never thought I would do a lot of things I've done this year!

Also, finally put up a new banner in the shop. My sister hand carved herself a sign for a show we were planning on doing (though we didn't get accepted!) and, being the dominant twin, I told her to make me one too! She was actually kind enough and generous enough to do so. She's been too busy to finish the sanding, so it hasn't actually been stained yet, but I did some photo editing on it and I'm pretty happy with it; think it suits the look of my shoppe and could be a long term fixture! Thank you Celena!

Guerilla Embroidery

So, my shoppe may have no sales, but my lovely mother-in-law has bought 4 of my Christmas ornaments and commissioned 5 more from me.

One of the 5 is a special request custom ball with a University of Texas theme. This was interesting for me, as I would have never chosen to do this theme on my own, but it was a fun challenge. It also necessitated some guerrilla style embroidery. I graduated from UT Austin in 2001 with a BA in Theatre/Dance and a concentration in costume design, so I dusted off the old school spirit and gave it a go.

Everyone is mystified by these balls I make, but the actual stitching technique is quite basic. Admittedly, you will have a better finished product with some needlework experience under your belt, but I really do think this craft is something anyone could learn. I taught myself from a book, after all. (There are temari artists out there who put me to shame, mind you, but I'm fairly proud of what I've been able to master in the short time I've been doing them - I made my first one for my daughter just before she was born, 9 months ago).

Cloth provides normal hand embroidery with a very regular and predictable "grid" to place your stitches in. Think warp and weft; you can place your stitch on one side of the thread or the other, giving you precise control over where your stitch appears in your design. This enables you to embroider anything, pretty much anywhere on the fabric and make it exactly the shape you want.

Temari embroidery is different.

After you wrap the ball with your base color thread (I use styrofoam balls, not the traditional and eco-friendly cloth scrap wad, I know I'm terrible!) you have an irregular, randomized network of thread going in all directions to cover a spherical surface. You are officially off the "grid" (*dork!*).

Typical temari designs are not affected much by these irregularities. You tuck your needle basically where you want it, but can push, pull or cover any error you make in stitch placement. It's a bit more of a nebulous process, more forgiving in many ways. In temari, you can pull stitches much tighter than you can with cloth, because you have a solid base, not a flexible piece of fabric. Your stitches are also more unpredictable though. You may put a stitch in and think it's going to show it's end point or origin point in a specific place, but when you pull through your next stitch, the nexus of thread may have mislead you, or have a gap, leaving your stitch shorter or longer than you intended. With regular temari embroidery, this is no big deal, you can make up for it on your next round of stitching more often than not.

Also, temari designs are just that; designs. They are not letters or numbers or curliques. They are flat sided shapes. When you put a stitch in, lay the thread across the ball and secure it with another stitch, you are creating a flat side to a shape. There are no circles, or curves. When you attempt to put such things into the design, this is when you need to employ guerilla embroidery tactics. On cloth (a grid) it's easy to be precise and make little stitches all in a row to create a curve. In a random nexus base, you lose that control, so you have to be more persistent and determined in order to get your design to look the way you intend it to.

I try to not do too many of these designs, but they are an interesting challenge, nonetheless!

I'm also including a little experimental ball design where I free handed some temari style presents. This was fun to do, don't know if I'll make any more though.