Swirl II

I'm really surprised by how different this swirl looks from the last one. This one looks like icing, and I can just imagine sticking my finger into it.

It is actually not exactly the same as the blue on cream; this one has hexagons and squares, not hexagons and diamonds. The stitching is closer together on this one. You can see less of the background. And I found out that you can add stitches (out of order) to fill up gaps.

The first one was a SAL from my Talk Temari group, this one was from the Inspirations magazine; thank you Marj for the loan of the magazine. I think, though, the main difference (improvement) is because of the practice, not from any difference in instructions.



I like this pattern, it is very nice to stitch on, because you can get in a zone. There are a lot of variations too; I think I will be trying some. You can stitch different shapes, and with more than one color.

Swirl Temari

This is a picture of a swirl temari. Thanks to some excellent instruction, I was able to stitch it very nicely on my first try. There's just a little too much space between the divisions. If you follow the longest thread on each section, you can see the hexagon and diamond divisions that form the basis of the design. It was a lot of fun to stitch.



C was very concerned that there were white spaces left. (You stitch the hexagons, and then the diamonds, and the diamonds stick out like a sore thumb before getting covered.) She was very pleased when they got covered up, and even helped pull the needle through on several stitches.

Quiet

Just a note to let you know I am still here. I saw my oncologist on Wednesday, and she is sending me for an MRI to double-check that the headaches I am having are not a result of my 18-year past cancer. It is my doctor's job to be paranoid about this kind of thing, and I am glad she is looking out for me, but it is very unsettling until the test is done and the results are in. If I am quiet, you know it is because I am working hard at staying calm and collected.

The headaches seem to have calmed down since Wednesday!

Challenge #1

This is the #1 challenge from my Temari class. I really like how this one turned out, even though it's not exactly like the pattern. There are 32 centers, the temari is marked with #8 pearl in black (so I could see it to stitch, but it doesn't show) and the stitching is also with #8 pearl. It took most of a 5 g ball. For a while, I didn't think I was going to have enough thread.



This pattern was originally a study on the Tiffany ball that drops on New Year's Eve. My study has black seams between the pentagons and hexagons, the white thread is DMC "metallic" and it was just right.

We are having company!



I went to a class today to learn features of my "new" sewing machine. I had to take a day off work, but I think it was really worth it, I learned quite a bit. The class was at Fabric Etc.

Challenge #4

This is the challenge #4 from my Temari class. It is a 32 center with interlocking Kiku stitching. I discovered that it looks quite pastel because of the white outline; if I were to stitch it again, I think I would go with one shade darker for every color.



I am very pleased that my designer daughter likes the colors and thinks the design is cool. She will be getting this one!

Finished Grandmother's Star

Last night I (finally) finished stitching on this temari for the "Grandmother's Stars" class I am taking/took with Barb Seuss. This temari was challenging for several reasons. It is very large, by far the biggest one I've made so far. It has multiple centers (32 to be exact). It has several layers: the division (metallic thread), the stitching around every center (light purple), continuous stitching (the light green thread), and the Kiku stitching. I was hoping to finish it on Wednesday night, but I still had the dark purple step around every star, and it takes a couple of hours to do each step.



I am very excited about what I learned with this temari. I learned several ways to do the 32 center division, and the centers came out more even than any I had tried before. I still need more practice, but there's a definite improvement. I love the continuous stitching (the green layer). There's a challenge temari in the lessons with only that stitch on it, which I may or may not get to, but it is a lot of fun.

Last night I got this one done in time to start on my next Temari. This is a 32 center which will have overlapped kiku stitching on every center. It will be cool, I promise. This is another of the challenge Temari from the class; elements we learned to stitch combined in different ways, with different colors.



It looks blurry, but I think that is only because the thread is sparkly, and throws the camera into a tizzy.

Back to real life!

Last night at guild I "taught" a class on how to make a biscornu or tuffet. Mostly, I handed out the directions, and explained the seam. I worked on this:



It's not quite a tuffet; it has 15 sides. I still need to add a button in the middle, and since I trimmed the corners so closely, I have to add something to cover the mess that resulted; I think a bead on each corner would look nice.