The "It's My Birthday" Challenge

The challenge was to pick a temari from Debi's site of a temari that was stitched close to your birthday, and recreate it. I picked this one, labeled 080204 (I think).

I really like the way it turned out, but it would have been better if I had used floss or floche. There are so many intersections that there is quite a build-up of thread on the surface of the ball, and things were not staying as even as they might have. I also ran out of the variegated DMC floss I was using, and went I went to get more of 1345, I could not find it. Either it has been discontinued, or JoAnn's is no longer carrying it. (Every time I have used a skein with less than 30 m on it, I have run out, even though I always have a lot left when I use a regular skein. I cannot figure that out.)

Can anyone see where I changed colors? I thought the color I found was quite a good match.



The sides of the ball are not as beautiful, but I am still willing to call this one a success.

It's a Daisy

In case you were wondering. C found the bag of felt, threads, and the samples I had made for the workshop last week, and was immediately intrigued. I was in the middle of something when she asked me to help her (playing a computer game... ) so I told her we would work on it later. She said, "That's okay, grandma, call me when you are ready." (!)

So first we had to pick out the shape, and she was sure she wanted a flower. A daisy seemed the easiest. She picked out the dark red and the orange, with a yellow center and white sewing. There was some concern when we couldn't find yellow thread at first, but I knew there was some in the drawer.



I cut out the paper pattern and the felt, and then started stitching around the petals with the white thread. She stitched one of the petals herself! and then delegated the rest of the stitching to me. She had fun with the stuffing as well. There was some concern about the white lines separating the petals, so I had to add those at the end.



When we were done, she was a little sad that this was a pillow she could hold in her hand. She wanted a pillow big enough to rest on... I guess that is next on the list to do.