Stitch-along

All my pentagons and hexagons are labeled...



And I have started stitching the pink stars.



(Do you like the action shot?) The pink layer goes from the center to just past the outline of the pentagon into the adjoining shape on the short lines. As they grow, the overlap will get larger and more diamond shaped. The white/yellow layer is on the long lines, also overlapping into the adjoining shapes, but 3 legs cross over at the same spot. I think there will be some build-up of thread at that spot, so we will have to see how that works out.

Debi suggested using a continuous stroke method; that way you would not have to use the tags and pins (at least on the pink layer). When we had our HHG stitch-along I didn't make the cross-overs right, so I want to practice that before I mess up a 32 face. There would also have to be some tricky work at the cross-overs for the white/yellow layer as well. I'm thinking of doing this pattern on a c10 to work out those issues. That would give me a chance to play with more colors too.

Rebecca asked about the size and the metallic centers. This ball is about 28 cm. It could stand to be a lot bigger to be able to see all the detail in this pattern. I did see the different colors of metallic in the centers of the kiku. It looked to me like the marking threads at the center of each were tacked down with different colors. I am going to tack mine down, but I haven't decided yet whether I am going to go with all gold, or go with a different color or colors. Alternating gold, pink, and yellow might be interesting...

My friend from Moonsilk Stitches came over to play last night. We did show and tell, and worked on coordinating a project for a guild program. Then she helped me tear the rest of my cotton fabric for the rug I'm going to make. Here it is all organized by color.



We both got our aerobic workout in by the time we were done, but we had a lot of fun. Thank you for your help, Marj!

Have a nice Memorial Day weekend. We have a house project slated for Saturday, and then hope to rest on Sunday and Monday.

Temari Stitch-along

Here's the picture I promised of my bracelet next to the thimbles. I let the thimbles hang together so they wouldn't feel intimidated by the bracelet looming over them.



I was looking at "Nana Akua's" temari on Flickr (here) and I found a temari I really liked. Several people expressed an interest in stitching it along with me, so here we go.

It is a 32 face temari. Here's my marked mari. I have to number the pentagons and hexagons with tags pinned in each space. Unfortunately, the thread catches on the pins when you are stitching, but you have to keep the order straight to have the pattern turn out right.



The next step is to start stitching. The light pink is threaded, but I am going to start stitching Kikus with the dark pink (5 layers of pink in all) on the short lines of the pentagons and hexagons. There are 4 layers of the yellow/white star stitched on the long lines, and the two color families alternate. The example is stitched with 2 strands held together, but my mari is smaller and wouldn't fit that much stitching, so I will stitch with one strand at a time, even though I may need more rounds. We shall have to see how things fit.

Next time I will talk about where the points of the kiku land for each color family.



We went to the Carole King and James Taylor concert last night. It was fantastic! Unfortunately, with the parking and traffic we didn't get home until after midnight. I'm going to have trouble staying awake in meetings today.

Finally! A Finish!

So I finally finished my bracelet. After looking at the picture, I realize I should have put something in for scale. Maybe I will take another picture with one of the "normal" size thimbles in the middle, it would look like a minnow next to a whale. This is 3 to 3 1/2 inches across. I can't quite get it over my hand, but it will make a wonderful temari stand.

I used Pearl #12 for the stitching. It's the first time I had used Anchor pearl, and I really liked it. I could give it a real hard tug and it held well, and I like the range of colors. The bracelet I stitched over was a hard white plastic, and was contoured as if it was padded, so I didn't add any additional padding.



Laura gave me the bracelet form I stitched on in New Mexico. She had ordered it from Oriental Trading Company, but I can't find it on-line now. I started stitching soon after I got home from vacation and had been plugging away since then. All of a sudden on Friday I started to see what the finished product was going to look like, and then I got my enthusiasm back. I am very pleased with it. I got oohs and aahs from my family too.

I had a little trouble with uneven gaps at the end, I had one area that was closing off quickly, and a couple of other ones where I had to spread out the stitching more than I wanted to in order to fill the gaps. If I make this pattern again, I will mark more divisions on the pattern, just so I have a guide and can make adjustments throughout the stitching, not just at the end.