Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Braided Kiku

In our Temari Challenge group, there was a question about braided Kiku stitching, and there was a good demonstration/tutorial shared, along with a challenge: How will yours look? This is how mine looks.

I'm stitching on a 4-face temari, which, if the faces were flat, is a tetrahedron. I like this division because it gives you more room to play than on a simple division, but doesn't take forever, like a multi-pole. I added extra support lines so each kiku has 12 points, and I layered the stitching, starting with the darkest color in the center and lightening up as I go out. You do have to be careful with the spread of your colors if you want a smooth transition. You can see on a corner of the pink flower that the colors don't blend. There's too much contrast, which calls attention to itself.

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The four faces are separated by green tri-wings, which are outlined, in turn with a continuous line of darker green.

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I'm very pleased by how this one turned out. It's not original, but it is very pretty.

Next is a mystery ball from the Temari Talk group. We got verbal instructions, but no picture or chart. It will be fun to see if my finished product looks anything like anyone else's.

Plus look what I found! (These were on top of my thread stash storage, rather than put away inside.) These are threads I can use for thimbles! They are not all the same weight, so I don't think I can mix the different types, but I can certainly come up with some interesting combinations. I'm so excited! I have to decide on a mold/size... I have a glue stick (6.4 cm) and a couple of chap stick tubes (5.4 and 5.2 cm). I think I'm going to try all three.

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Now I can save my birthday wish for something else.

I'm planning a give-away for an up-coming milestone. Stay tuned!

4 comments:

MOM said...

All I can say is WOW!

Anonymous said...

Hi Jane--I've just begun making temaris, and find your site very inspirational. Can you tell me what the division was on this one?

Would love to see more pictures of all the temari you're doing...

Carol

Sandydi said...

I love the braided kiku - would you have a pattern that you can loan/give/or sell me for this one?

Sandy Dittmer (sldittmer@gmail.com)

Sandydi said...

I love the braided kiku - would you have a pattern that you can loan/give/or sell me for this one?

Sandy Dittmer (sldittmer@gmail.com)