Friday, July 10, 2009

Swap/Giveaway

I had one entry for the clay, and I will be sending all of it to Zuleikha in the United Kingdom. There were two entries for the tools, so I flipped a coin, and Maggie R won; please, would each of you send me your address at Jane dot at gmail dot com

I will get the items in the mail as soon as I can. Zuleikha, I will send you my address on Monday.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Return G.I.T.S.

Peg wrote me that she got the Temari I sent her, so I can show it now. I actually got it stitched before I got sick, I just never made it to the post office to send it to her until last week.

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This is another of the challenge patterns from the class I recently took with Barb Suess. It has 32 centers: 12 pentagons and 20 hexagons. I was quite please with how even everything turned out using the instructions we received in the class. I was amazed that I could make a 32-center ball by stitching stars in the 12 pentagons, it was like magic!

I used 16 shades of pearl cotton, in both DMC and Anchor brands, and I actually had one or two colors left over. Each color was used twice, on opposite sides of the mari, so you can't see two stars with the same color at the same time. The marking was done with a random green metallic I had in my drawer; I have no idea what brand it is.

I've been poring over one of my Japanese Temari books. It has a section where there are very clear pictures of c8 and c10 maris, marked with extra stitching lines (the division in black and the extra marking lines in red), and then an example of a temari stitched on that marking. There are more than a dozen of each. I'm thinking of making a methodical study of each division, stitching each different marking, following this book. I think it would be quite interesting.

I'm dragging my feet on finishing the stitching on my Chatelaine. I always do this when I near the end of a big project; it's too much like saying good-bye to an old friend. I will get through it, though.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Think Green GITS

I received this temari yesterday from Peg for the "Think Green" G.I.T.S. (Great International Temari Swap) through the TalkTemari Yahoo group. It took both of us much longer than expected to complete this swap, but Peg had a much more interesting reason than my hospital stay. She was preparing for the JTA (Japanese Temari Association) certification. We found out this week that she passed her certification! Congratulations Peg!

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This Temari is a c10, with stars stitched on the pentagons, triangles on the hexagons, and white diamonds on the squares, but what I didn't see until I looked from further away was the negative space beautiful green flowers! There are other beautiful details too: the hanging loop, and the card she attached with her information. Now I want to hurry home so I can fondle it some more.

Thank you so much, Peg, for the beautiful Temari!

Hopefully she will receive the one I made in the next day or two, and then I will be able to post about it.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Swap/Give-away

Well, I've discovered that there are no would-be sculptors reading my blog. I've only had one response to my swap/give-away post, and she's interested in everything. I know I said I would pick a winner on July 31, but I changed my mind. I will wait until Friday, July 10, and I will close the give-away portion then. The swap is already completed, all the clay is gone.

I'm working steadily on my Chatelaine "Indian Summer Afternoon" and will hopefully be done with everything but the beads by the end of the week. Woo-hoo! I'll post a picture then.