Look at this! I actually have a finished temari to share! DH calls this one ‘Kindergarten Classroom’. It is so very busy when you first look at it and seems a little chaotic, but when you stop to have a look up close you see the structure with each little part doing what it is supposed to do. The colors are bright and almost clash; none of the lines are quite straight.

It’s a pretty good description I think. This one was an experiment with combining two different overlapping designs using stripes to see what new shapes might emerge. I think things would have turned out a bit more ‘focused’ if I had used perle cotton. Instead I used a thread from my specialty stash: Flax ‘N Colors from Thread Gatherer. This particular fiber is linen rather than cotton so it is stiffer and varies a bit in width. It has a great character and texture but probably would have been better for a different design. I am sure it did not help that I didn’t realize that it comes in different sizes so I ended up using two different ones on the ball. Ooops. Additionally, the colors are all very close in value so it looks a bit grey from a distance and I didn’t quite get the contrast in the striping that would have emphasized the emerging shapes better.

In any case, I am happy with it. I see much to explore when I try it again (with #8 perle!). I like the way it seems to have negative space centers when you look at it from across the room, but when you get up close you see those are really stitched centers that are little striped stars. And, even better, those are part of larger shapes; they are not stitched as little stars at all except for the last rows to outline them.

I’m afraid that for now this one is only posted here and is not in my notebook yet. But I wanted to share right away. I’ll get it in the notebook eventually.

Busy, busy, busy… and unfortunately not much stitching to show for it.

The failed thimble that I thought I would redo this weekend never happened. Very sad. I should manage to get it started today so hopefully it will be ready for this week’s Thimble Thursday.

I did manage to get a new temari started but only barely. There certainly isn’t enough stitching on it to show where it is going yet. Sigh.

So, I thought I would write a bit about the temari design element that I am playing with… stripes combined with layering (interweaving) to create new shapes that (hopefully) are a focus of the design without you stitching them. Huh?

The big idea…. when you layer elements the area where they cross creates a new shape on the ball. When you combine that with stripes, the stripes tend to emphasize the new shape. They make it look like it was stitched as a single thing rather than being built up from other larger overlapping items. Let’s go fishing in my notebook for examples…

This one looks like maybe I sitched rectangular shapes over each other to make the diamond. Or maybe, wrapped some bands and then stitched the diamond? Nope. It is stitched with large layered triangles.

Just look at those large spiraling triangles on this design. Yet, there was not a single triangle used to make it. It is all done with layered wrapped bands.

Yummy watermelon slices. Look at all those odd little wedge shapes to stitch. Not really. This one is layered pentagons and triangles. Admittedly the striping is a bit more subtle on this one but it is the addition of the green stripes at the edges of the pentagons that really make the shapes look distinct.

How about this one? Look at all of those little hexagons to stitch. Well, this time there were actually hexagons stitched, but they were much larger than the little ones ringed with silver.

8 point stars, 6 point stars and squares? Not this time. This is done entirely with wrapped bands that are both layered and woven.

Now, if you are experienced in stitching temari the creating of these ‘found’ shapes are not such a puzzle. It might even appear to be quite obvious. But for beginners they can be confusing. One of the things we have to learn to do when we decipher patterns is figure out when a shape on the ball is created by actually stitching it or when it is created by the layering of other elements.

When you design your own patterns or even when you are just choosing colors for an existing pattern you can use these shapes to your advantage. Look carefully at the intersections created by overlapping elements. Could a judicious use of layering and a little striping help you to create an entirely new look?

This is what I am playing with on the temari I am stitching right now. I don’t know if it will come out the way I envision but it should at least be interesting. Hopefully the shapes formed at the intersections of my stitched elements shape up the way I want them to.

In the last post when I rated the wrapped band techniques by difficulty I put the interlocked bands as the most difficult.  Usually I would rate interlocking as easier than interweaving because you can finish one element entirely before doing another.  The order that you stitch the elements does not matter the way it does with interweaving so there are less details to keep track of.  Just stitch one element, then weave the next element over and under the previous one.  That is all true when you are only interlocking two elements together at a point like in these examples:

The blue and white kiku elements are simply interlocked.

The triangle sides are interlocked with the pentagon sides.

Two wrapped band elements interlocked together.

However, interlocking becomes much more difficult when you are interlocking multiple elements at one point. Like the the purple wrapped bands I posted yesterday and these other examples. The more elements you have, the more difficult it becomes.

4 (or 8 depending on your point of view) wrapped bands interlocked at a single point

5 spindle elements interlocked at a single point

3 spindle elements interlocked at a single point

I find that I always end up doing more ripping out than I want to when I am doing these type of interlockings but they are not that difficult in principal, just in practice.

When you interlock two elements you end up going over the near side and then under the far side of the element.  Or, under the near side and over the far side; it doesn’t really matter which you choose.  The same is true for when you do multiple elements at a point but you have to keep track of all of them.

Consider the third one, with three interlocked spindles of blue, green and orange.  On the right side the blue spindle goes under the sides of the orange and green spindles nearest and then over the sides farther away.  This is reversed on the left side.  If you look closely at the other examples above you’ll see the same pattern exists.

Unfortunately when you are first adding the elements it can be difficult to determine which is the ‘near’ side and which is the ‘far’ side so it requires a fair bit of thought and attention to get it to work out correctly.  And, really unfortunately, you don’t tend to notice any mistakes until you are doing the last element.  Sigh…. hence the greater ripping out potential.

So, the attention to detail required when interlocking multiple elements along with the increased potential to make mistakes that must be ripped out cause me to place this technique at a more difficult spot than the interweaving ones for my wrapped bands, even though usually I would say that interlocking is easier than interweaving.