Still plugging away

This is the picture I was going to post yesterday, but the computer didn't recognize my memory card, and I didn't have time to fuss with it. Today I had a little time, and I got the picture to download (whew!) so here it is. I really like the way it is turning out, but I was worried about the centers in the pink stars. According to the pattern picture (which I should have checked before) the centers of those stars are blue thread... I should have done the marking with the blue floss! Oops!



It's kind of necessary for the pattern, so I am adding (enhancing?) marking threads in blue floss. You can see here, in this poor picture, that the centers look quite a bit better with the blue added. However, in consequence, I haven't advanced on the pattern.



I am really enjoying stitching on this one, but it's one of the first times I've used floss on a temari, and I haven't been too careful with making sure the threads are parallel. I'm calling this a practice temari, and I'm considering stitching the pattern again in different colors... I'm wondering how my favorite blue and green on white would look.

I found out that a cousin died in his sleep this week, younger than I am. He left a wife and two young (7 & 8) daughters. I so wish I could go to the funeral, and share with the family.

HEG

We had guild last night, the last meeting until next September. It's amazing what good friends you get to be with people you see once a month for 9 months out of the year. The September meeting is always so much fun, because we get to catch up, and see what everyone has been doing over the summer. (Plus, it's a party at a nice restaurant.)

We showed off the bears we made:



(Can you tell we are having too much fun?)



Here are all the bears, except that in this picture they look like they are being held up, or doing their exercises. We are hoping kids in the hospital will get some comfort from them. They looked adorable packed into the basket.

Multi-pole

This is a picture of the newest temari I am working on. I am not quite done with the first step of 3. There needs to be a layer of pink linking up with the small pink pentagons. I'm not sure I will be able match the picture exactly, but I wanted to thank Rebecca for getting me this far. She was able to read the Japanese colors and the order they were stitched in for the this layer. According to the picture, the next layer is all blue, and the final layer is black.



As I was beginning to stitch this (the only stitching was the gold marking threads and the little pink pentagons) P came up and asked what it was going to look like. I showed him the picture in the book, and he studied for a minute, then he said, "That will work. The background is black, like in the picture, but you will have to sew on it a lot, more than that one (pointing to one of my snowflake temari in the bowl by my chair)." I was impressed and pleased for a couple of reasons. First, he pays attention! Second, he could make the leap from an unfinished temari to imagine the completed one. I'm going to ask if he wants to stitch on one himself. I'll let you know what he says.

We've named the kittens. I know, that is a dangerous step. Tom; Alli/Alley (we are not sure if (s)he is a boy or a girl yet; and Kit. The fourth one has a name at home, but I am not going to share it, as I feel it will hurt her chances to get adopted. I will try to get individual pictures to share. All four love to cuddle, and are learning to walk, jump, and run. They should be weaned within 2 weeks.

Judy, I have bowls of temari displayed in my living room, I have a couple of apothecary jars with temari in them, and I am looking for the hanging vegetable/fruit baskets that used to be popular to hang in the archway between my living room and dining room. There seem to be temari everywhere!