There are not too many details to tell about finishing up this design. As I suspected I did not have much room for the filling in pentagons around the star centers. I tried a couple of different things there before deciding on using the dark blue rayon thread that matched the wrap thread and untwisting it to lay it flat. I managed to get in two rows.

When that was done I wasn’t quite happy with the orange stars; they just seemed to need a teenie bit more definition. The book example actually had another row on them of the background matching color but I didn’t have room for even that. The ElMolina rayon thread is divisible with a small bit of effort (7 sections). So I separated out one section and added an outline to the orange stars. That popped them up off the background a bit and finished them off nicely. Strictly speaking this should have been a row on all of the large pentagons before I added the small filler pentagons and I will do it that way if I restitch this design.

I decided not to redo the diagram for the post today. I will redo it eventually and compile the directions into a better format, but today there are other things that are higher on the to-do list. As always, let me know if you need more info sooner rather than later and that will move the task higher up the list. If you missed it, there are three other posts on this design as I stitched it: post 1, post 2, and post 3.

So, what did I learn?

1. The striped pentagons in the first layer should start a little farther out from the halfway point. That would give more room for the filler pentagons later and should enhance the finished look.
2. I wouldn’t get too wild with colors beyond what I did already. The inner row of the striped pentagons needs to offer a strong contrast to the background color that is used to fill in the centers later. It would probably be better to not have the marking lines left in the final design.
3. The ElMolina rayon thread is pretty versatile. It is not an easy thread to work with but with a small amount of effort and patience you get a whole lot of “Wow!”. Laid flat it is sleek and shiny; twisted it has a nice ‘ropey’ look that gives precise definition to multiple rows; separated it allows for stitching fine details. The overall feel of the ball is actually kind of soft and the shine is absolutely incredible. While I don’t think it is a thread that everyone would enjoy, I think it is definitely a ‘win’ for me and I’m looking forward to doing some more designs with it.

While I’ve been finishing this one up I’ve been thinking of design possibilities for the International Temari Appreciation Day (ITAD) logo ball. It has to be an S16 and much be stitched with uwagake chidori, also known as kiku herringbone. I think I have a nice idea now so hopefully I can get it mostly stitched by next week. I think I will use the rayon thread again.

Happy Monday!

I don’t have a complete temari to share today but I am happy to say that I at least have one started. I’ll post a pic and a diagram so if you are feeling adventurous you can stitch it along with me.

I am using a new-to-me fiber on this one. It is called El Molina from Presencia thread company (link opens in a new window). You may know them from their Finca perle cotton. El Molina is a loosely twisted rayon thread that is super shiny. I did a little experiment stitching with it maintaining the twist (like stitching with embroidery floss unstranded) and also with stitching with it and untwisting it to lay it flat as I went. Sorry the pics are a bit wonky, bad lighting at night when I took them. The thread is actually a really pretty yellow; not the sickly greenish yellow you see here.)

Right off the spool maintaining the twist

Untwisted and laid flat

I decided that I would do at least the first part of this temari using the ‘lay flat’ method. So far it is not too fussy but does require a bit of patience. This would be a good place to use a laying tool to smooth the threads as I go. (I generally just use the needle though.) I am working with much shorter lengths in the needle than usual (about 18 inches or enough to do 2 rounds on one of the pentagons).

Enough about fiber… what about the temari?

This design is from the Japanese book Owari Temari (ISBN 4-8377-0391-7) ball #3 on page 7. The original was done with shades of blue and white but I decided to go a bit brighter. You need a minimum of four colors for the design; one of them should match the wrap thread. The book example is marked invisibly but I used a little sparkle for my C10 marking.  (Oh, my ball is about 28cm and the thread width when stitched is close to 6 strands of floss.) I have yellow and bright blue for the pentagon layer that I am working on now. I will be adding blue (to match the wrap thread) and orange for the hexagon layer later that will create the stars.

Here’s a diagram of the start:

Stitch pentagons with points at the halfway mark on the short lines of the C10 pentagons. Alternate yellow and blue rows until the stitched pentagons meet at their corners.

Here’s a picture of what I have stitched so far (only three pentagons). There are two rows of each color… yellow, blue, yellow, blue. I will be adding yellow to the outside of each pentagon but not until after I have stitched all 12 so that I can make sure I get the corners to meet up nicely. (Hmmm. I notice in this picture that my marking lines are a little messy in that top pentagon. I’ll have to add a couple of tacking stitches to fix that.)

The rayon thread is beautiful so far and I like stitching with it although it is not as easy to work with as other fibers. I get a big grin on my face every time I walk by the ball and catch a glimpse of what I have stitched so far. It is beautiful! This week I am hoping to finish stitching the pentagons.

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.

My daughter is into reading and literature. I think that she is more well read at this point in her life than many adults. She loves books of all kinds. So her reaction to someone asking her what her favorite book was the other day was pretty funny. Basically she went on a rant with all of the drama and emotion that only a teenager can muster…

How can you possibly have a favorite book?! It’s a stupid question. They are all so different and unique. Sure there are some that are not quite so wonderful but most of them have so much to offer. Each one gives me something different to think about, to enjoy. What’s my favorite… well, what am I reading right now (usually several items…) The question makes no sense!

And on and on… something like that. It made me think of a friend of mine and how she reacts to questions about her favorite color. What’s the point? They are all wonderful.

Most of the time that is how I feel about stitching threads. As I look into my specialty threads stash I think about all the wonderful things they have to offer me. There are so many textures and colors, so many possibilities whispering up from the drawer. Take me! Stitch with me! Surprise the world with how wonderful I can be!

Perle cotton is just too easy to grab. It is not expensive and the only choice to make is what color you want. There is none of that texture and technique to get in the way. But oh, when I take the time to consider the other possibilities…

Despite all of the threads calling to me from my drawer, I do have to confess that I am feeling a little favoritism right now. Vineyard silks are really pretty dreamy.

It occurred to me that a little context might make this make more sense… so in the “Stash credit update and more thimble notes” post I wrote last fall I talked about doing a comparison of thimble threads. Then in my post “Agriculture, math and thimbles” I talked about a decision making tool my DH helped to write the computer programs for.  Now just a few days ago in the “thimble thread analysis part 1″ post I described how I gathered data to assign some rankings to my thimble threads based on some basic criteria.

Now that I have my initial thread data it is time to do some math magic with it. First there is an assumption that some criteria are more important than others.

Order the importance of the criteria

I’ll order the criteria from 1 to 5 with 5 being my first consideration and 1 being my last.  That looks like this:

5.  Availability, 4. Color range, 3. Finished look on the thimble, 2. Cost, 1. Ease of use

That ordering assumes I am more interested in color than in the look on the thimble. I am not sure that is entirely true because color and look are closely related. Another possible ordering is this:

5.  Availability, 4. Finished look on thimble, 3. color range, 2. Cost, 1. Ease of use

Since the decision process is done in a spreadsheet with automated calculations, I can consider both orderings and see if they make a difference.

Do some magic with the rating numbers

DH took my rating numbers and normalized them so that the scale had a max score of 1 instead of 5.  Then he waved his magic wand and wrote a few formulas in a spreadsheet to pull the data together based on the importance of the criteria.  That result give me a list of scores that are like weighted averages.

Make it pretty so I can understand it

The scores themselves are still pretty difficult to makes sense of so he created a graph for me.  It is a line graph but you don’t read it in quite the same way you normally would.  As you move from left to right across the graph you are adding in more and more criteria to the decision.  So the points as the far left of the graph represent a ranking based on only the single most important criteria (availability) and the points on the right represent a ranking based on all of the criteria.  Cost and ease of use are really not nearly as important to me as the other criteria so the center point of the graph is the best place for me to focus my attention.

This is the graph for the second ordering of criteria: 5.  Availability, 4. Finished look on thimble, 3. color range, 2. Cost, 1. Ease of use

Analyze it

From the graph I can tell that the unavailability of the Fujix thread is really skewing the results. If Fujix thread is superior to the others across the board in other areas then I might put in more effort to find a way to get it. So, I redid the numbers assuming that I could get Fujix just to see if that changes the decision.  It isn’t really a surprise to find out that besides the availability, Fujix thread is almost identical to the Orizuru. But, that really doesn’t alter things enough to warrant the extra research I would need to do to find a source. That means I can essentially eliminate Fujix from consideration until the thread becomes easily accessible to me.

Based on these numbers with the finished look being more important than color range, the Orizuru thread does really well and is pretty obviously the best decision.

But, what if I really want a particular color?  What if the choice or range of colors is so important that I am willing to give a bit on the finished look?  How would that alter the decision about what thread to use?  For that I look at the graph using the other ordering of criteria: 5.  Availability, 4. Color range, 3. Finished look on the thimble, 2. Cost, 1. Ease of use.  It looks like this:

Now I can see that Vikki Clayton threads do better initially (availability and color) but when all things are considered Orizuru is still the better decision.

So based on this analysis, the Orizuru would be the best one for me to invest in a stash. For those times when I really do want a particular color, or a shading of colors then I can order specific threads from Vikki Clayton.

A caveat: all of this is based on my subjective rankings of the threads that I explained in this post: “thimble thread analysis part 1″. You might rank things differently, or might have a different ordering of the criteria that would make your decision different from mine.

Next steps?

I need to order some thread! Conveniently I can order a pre-selected palette of Orizuru thread from Chloe Patricia in her etsy shop.

I know it seems like this was probably way too much work for something as simple as getting some thread to use for thimbles, but I like the idea of knowing that I have really considered my options carefully and chosen the best one for me. Now I can comfortably order threads without thinking that I might be missing out on something that would have been a better choice. Besides, the little geek inside of me is really amused that I could apply such a scientific tool to this artistic decision.

Update: I had this all written and ready to publish when Chloe Patricia shared some more information with me about getting either Fujix or Orizuru from Japan. It does not really change the decision to order the initial set of Orizuru threads since having a ready made palatte of threads makes the ordering much easier. But it means that when I do get to the point where I want particular colors, I can order the Fujix  from Chloe Patricia in Japan. That way I can get specific colors for my thimbles and get the fabulous finish that those threads give. Yea!