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.

Here’s my latest one. I used perle cotton since I didn’t know how much thread it would take and my specialty threads have a more limited supply. I only get 1.5 stash credits for it. Now that I know how much a round of color takes I will probably go back and do it with some of the non-perle threads I have (and brighter colors!).

This is one that I have wanted to do for a long, long time. I wanted to do it not so much for the design (although I really like it) but more because the instructions were written to stitch it with a single continuous path. This design is from the Temari for Four Seasons Volume 1 (Japanese book ISBN # 4-8377-0790-4).

There are two temari in there that are done with a single continuous path: this one and a 122 multipole with uwagake flowers like the design we know as HHG, but with only one color rather than two.  Both are pictured on page 19.

You could do this design by stitching the individual shapes but it would be a nightmare to keep track of the layering that way. You would need pins and/or concentration on the geometry of the ball at each step so that you kept it all straight. By using a continuous path, all you need to do is keep track of your starting point and all of the layering takes care of itself. Cool!

This is my first temari of the year!

It is a standard HHG design that I did with a funky rayon thread and regular #5 perle cotton. I think it is pretty much my favorite HHG design (that I have stitched).

So, thoughts about HHG… for those who are unfamiliar with it HHG means Hite Hude Gake or ‘one stroke brush’. It is the name of a temari pattern done on 32 centers with layered (interwoven) uwagake stars. A lot of the online temari community learned the original design from Sue H on the Talk Temari group or from a pattern on TemariKai.

I see HHG as a technique as well as a design and I have been exploring it for some time, first by just applying it in the same form to multipoles rather than 32 center markings, then by simple explorations of different shapes and more recently, by looking for a complete generalization of the technique. So, the other temari I have to share (in the cleaning up loose ends category) is the finished version of the experiment I started at the end of last year.

Sorry the picture quality isn’t great. When I last showed this one it did not have the orange star layer on it.  This is not one of the prettier HHG’s I have done, but I still think that the idea I was pursuing has potential. I have some ideas about how I might be able to use a path like I did on this one for something a little more lovely.

Now, in terms of catching up with last year’s stuff… I have one more bit of old temari business hanging on but it will have to wait just a bit longer before I can share it here.

I said I would be back to temari soon …

This is the temari I am currently working on. I don’t think it is done yet, but I am not quite sure what I am going to do to make it look less, ummm… experimental.

This one started as a standard Hitu Hude Gake design since I need to take some in-progress pictures while I do one.  Then, I realized that I had marked it with a thread that really blended with the wrap.  Note to self: When you are going to take pictures for demonstration purposes, use high contrast marking thread.

So, I had the ball all marked and it was not going to work for demo pics. I thought I would stitch it anyway… then… completely without warning… I got hijacked by my silly little mathematical brain and the design went off in another direction completely.  Like other times this has happened, all I could do was follow along and hope it came out ok in the end.

It still uses the idea of an HHG design: a continuous path working small interwoven kiku stars on a 32 center marking. However, there really is no reason why the path has to be the spiral type path used in what is thought of as a ‘standard’ HHG. I was curious if a more random path would work so off I went and… well, you see the result.

It is actually a more exciting result than it looks.  While this particular random path did not create a mind blowing design, there are seeds of potential lurking there. I’ll leave you to ponder that thought for a bit.

It is holiday time here.  The kids will be out of school and DH will be on vacation.  That means I will probably get very little time in the blog department.  So, let me take this moment to wish all of you a wonderful season.  Whatever you choose to celebrate at this time, may it be wonderful and special with the people who are special to you. I might get back to post before New Year’s but if I don’t, I’m sending out happy, joyful thoughts to everyone for a wonderful start to 2010!