This is the temari that was talking so loudly to me the other day. Isn’t he a handsome fellow now that he is all stitched?

This is basically a transfer of the design from the recent green and yellow one I did on 32 centers to a C8/14 centers marking. Both are stitched with hhg aka a single continuous path. I think I like this new little guy better than the original version. I am finding that I really like stitching designs with continuous paths. There is something quite relaxing about it.

Stitching was fun because of the way the stitching path goes, and not so fun because the mari was as hard as a rock. I wonder what I put in the center of this one or what I was thinking about when I wrapped it. I definitely did not have the even hand for wrapping that I do these days. The design thread was DMC floche and the marking thread was Kreinik #8 braid. It was one of the vintage colors so is not a sparkly as some are but it suited this temari nicely.

Here’s a pic of the two designs side by side with a ruler for scale. DH tells me that I need to include objects for scale once in awhile so that my readers will know how big things really are. He was mostly referring to my thimbles but really it is true for other things too.

big = 30cm circumference, small = 17.5cm circumference

Ooops. The color in the pictures is off. Neither one is quite right but the one at the top of the post is the closest. The mari wrap is a yellowish green (more green than it appears). The design threads are royal blue and purple.

I found a little temari (less than 2 inches across) in my drawer when I was cleaning out recently. It was one I had just quickie marked with a 14 center marking when one of the chat groups was trying to figure that out. It spoke to me…

That’s right. I could hear the little voice in my head, “You know you want to stitch on me. Don’t you think I would be pretty stitched up in a version of the last continuous path design you did? Maybe you could add a little sparkle? I’m so cute and small…”

(Don’t tell anyone I’m hearing voices ok? They’ll think I’m crazy.)

So, I went digging for thread to stitch with. The colors I found just didn’t work on the wrap the little guy had so to his surprise I ripped out the marking (promising to put it back later) and added a new thread wrap. Then to be true to his wishes, I used a Kreinik braid to do the marking.

So, the marking is 14 centers which just happens to be a multipole based on a C8 rather than a C10. I marked the C8, did one pass of the multiple of 3 technique and voila! A lovely 14 center marking. There are 8 hexagons and 6 smaller squares. It is analogous to the 32 center marking on the C10. You could also get to it by using the multipole method of triangle side divided by 3.

Now I get to stitch on it!

This is the last in a series of three posts about a little kiku sampler ball I just finished. I wanted to highlight the difference in appearance that small changes in technique can make on a chrysanthemum design (kiku design in Japanese). All of these flowers are stitched on squares of a C8 division. They are stitched opposite each other in color matched pairs. Each pair of flowers differs by only one variable.

These purple flowers are stitched on 16 lines, with interwoven petals and shading of colors from light to dark.  This time the difference is much more obvious.

a 16 petal kiku

a 16 petal kiku variation

As you can see, the inner stitches of the second one are taken much farther out from the center than on the first one.  For the first one they are packed as close to the center as I could get them.  For the second one they are at about the 1/4 mark on the short line of the square.  You don’t have to leave that center space blank like I did here; you can fill it with other types of embroidery stitches or add more starburst lines if you wanted.  The petals on the second one don’t look as tightly packed as they do on the first because as you move out from the center of the circle you have more space between marking lines.  Even though the first one looks much more dense, they are still done on the same number of lines and rows.

The outer stitches on the first one are still at 3/4 of the short line of the square like all of the other kikus on this ball.  For the second one, moving the inner stitches out broadens the angle of the points.  That means that you don’t have to space your lower stitches as far apart and so need less space for your rows.  So, I moved the outer points down a bit further so that the petals would still end at the edge of the square in the same number of rows.

This is the last of the kiku variations I did on this particular sampler but there are still lots of other things that you could explore with kiku designs.  I may do another sampler this summer and play with color ideas.  We’ll see.

Details about the stitching if you are not familiar with the terms:

These flowers are stitched with uwagake chidori kagari (Japanese term) or kiku herringbone stitching.  That is when the stitch at the top part of the zig zag (chidori) is taken around the existing stitches (uwagake).  They were both interwoven meaning that you stitch one row on one set of 8 petals, then one row on the other set of 8 petals, and continue alternating until you have done all of the rows.

This series of posts is about a little kiku sampler ball I just finished. I wanted to highlight the difference in appearance that small changes in technique can make on a chrysanthemum design (kiku design in Japanese). All of these flowers are stitched on squares of a C8 division. They are stitched opposite each other in color matched pairs. Each pair of flowers differs by only one variable.

These flowers are stitched on 8 lines so that there is a little more room in the center. There are still 16 lines on the marking; I just ignored half of them. The inner points are close to the center and the outer points started at the 3/4 mark on the short line of the square. Here they are:

an 8 petal kiku

an 8 petal kiku variation

Once again, can you spot the difference? I think it is more subtle on these than it was on the blue pair. Focus on the center of the flowers. For the first one, the uwagake part of the stitch was made very narrow to cinch in the threads and create a gap between petals. Notice that you can still see the extra marking lines in the gap.  For the second one the uwagake part of the stitch was spread as wide as could be in the space, making sure that the edges of adjacent petals touched; the extra marking lines are covered up by the stitching.

This effect would be more noticeable on a larger temari since in the first case, the width of the uwagake stitch would be about the same leaving larger gaps between the petals.  I find it a little more difficult to do the wide version on a larger temari because the stitch tends to want to pull together and leave a gap naturally.  It takes a bit of effort on your tension to be sure you don’t leave gaps even with wide stitches.  It can really be a neat effect.  Here’s one I did with stripes:

a 12 petal kiku stitched with wide uwagake and stripes

The stripes end up giving a cool zig zag effect, especially in the center where the uwagake stitches are touching.

Details about the stitching if you are not familiar with the terms:

These flowers are stitched with uwagake chidori kagari (Japanese term) or kiku herringbone stitching.  That is when the stitch at the top part of the zig zag (chidori) is taken around the existing stitches (uwagake).  For these pink flowers all that was changed was how wide or narrow the stitch at the top was.

This series of posts is about a little kiku sampler ball I just finished.  I wanted to highlight the difference in appearance that small changes in technique can make on a chrysanthemum design (kiku design in Japanese). All of these flowers are stitched on squares of a C8 division.  They are stitched opposite each other in color matched pairs.  Each pair of flowers differs by only one variable.

Both of these flowers are stitched on 16 lines.  (I added an additional 8 support lines to the existing lines of the C8 square.)  They both use the same number of rows and color sequence (2 light blue, 1 med blue, 1 dark blue).  They both have top points close to the center, and bottom points at the 3/4 mark on the short lines of the square.  Because of the size of the ball and the #5 perle cotton the top area is pretty closely packed together.

A basic 16 petal kiku

a variation of a 16 petal kiku

Can you spot the one difference between them?  

The first one is interwoven (also called layered) and the second one is interlocked.  With the stitches packed this tightly it is a more subtle difference than you usually see with the two techniques.  Interlocking the petals gives a twist to the flower.  In this case it is a twist to the right but you could make it a twist to the left by switching your over and unders for the weaving.

Details about the stitching if you are not familiar with the terms:

These flowers are stitched with uwagake chidori kagari (Japanese term) or kiku herringbone stitching.  That is when the stitch at the top part of the zig zag (chidori) is taken around the existing stitches (uwagake).

Interweaving is when you stitch one row with the inner points on one set of lines, then switch and stitch one row in the opposite way, having the inner points on the other set of lines.  Alternate these rows to build up the design.  Some people also call this technique layering.

Interlocking is when you stitch all of the rows needed on the first set of lines.  Then stitch all of the rows on the opposite set of lines, weaving over and under the existing petals as you go.