Temari: #102 & #103

Temari #102 and #103 represent all my temari production for the past couple months.

 

The one above is #102, a C8 division. If it looks suspiciously familiar, it is because it is a C8 version of my temari #101, which is a C10.

There are less Shasta daisies on this one, but the flowers are a bit fuller appearing since there are more petals per flower.

The perle cotton threads on this ball are ones I hand dyed.

The next temari, #103, is a C10 division. There are six bands that make up the wider nine thread bands. The sixth band is a zigzag that circumscribes the ball instead of a straight line.

The remaining negative spaces were highlighted with narrow three thread bands.

A pastel variegated thread alternates with black in the wide bands. Although this might no show well on the computer screen, in person, this creates a subtle dynamic quality to the design.

Only the pale peach thread used in the diamonds and to tack down intersections is one of my hand dyed threads.

Only two temari to show for over two months is very low production for  me. With a number of health issues that are as tangled as a ball of thread after a cat has played with it, I am pleased to have achieved this much.

There is another temari in the works that is going with me to doctors appointments. Lately, the wait times have been relatively short, so not much progress at appointments.

A new C10 temari, maroon background with twelve stars, is going with me today to an appointment. What will go in the hexagon negative spaces between the stars is yet to be decided. Postponing that decision gives me something to look forward to.

 

Knot Quilt Almost Done

Almost, meaning it is closer to done than not done. The front is finished but there is still work to be done on the back which includes a rod pocket, hand sewing the inside edge of binding on back and a label.

After making the quilt top, this quilt project got derailed by two things: temari and lack of inspiration.
I just could not find the solution to how it needed to be quilted. So, I let it hang on the sewing room wall for months, until one day I decided to tackle it, but with no better ideas than before. Fortunately, after several failed attempts, it hit me that instead of having the quilting following the knot patterns, it needed to emphasize the oak leaf hydrangea leaves.

And it worked. To outline the leaves, I had to add lines where the leaves would have shown through the knot design since I wanted the leaves to be continuous and not cut off by the knot patterns. Quilting outlined the leaves and the major veining of them and then the rest of the background was quilted in another color.

Since there are some large areas of less densely quilted areas near the edge, those areas tended to bubble up. To cure that and to make sure the quilt would lay flat, I basted along just those areas then tugged on the lose thread end to ease the fullness out until it lay flat. Then I tied off the basting thread.

The next step was to attach binding. No amount of wishful thinking would help me find the perfect fabric either in my fabrics or at a store. I could have used a navy blue to go with the almost solid navy blue lines, but it would have looked too heavy. Any dyed fabric would look solid, heavy and just not right with it because this quilt top is white colored with fabric markers and pastel dye sticks.

The only solution that I would be happy with is to make binding that went with the quilt design. Whit fabric was cut and pressed into single fold binding. Next, using the same blue fabric marker used for the major knots, I colored the edges to imitate the bands in the knot work.

As you can see from the picture of the back, that only the front binding on the quilt has been sewn in place. The raw end was trimmed and folded to the back.

When I flipped the quilt over, I really liked how the quilting on the back looked but decided the leaves could use a little more color to separate them from the background a little more. Out came the pastel dye stick again. First, a little red, then orange, and finally (not shown) some highlights with yellow. After the back is finished, I will post a picture of it.

For the back binding, I found a scrap of fabric that complimented the orange backing fabric nicely and would look good with the navy blue thread that the front binding was sewn with. That is important to me because the outside edge of both are sewn together using color chosen for the quilt front binding.

To hold the back binding in place without distorting with pins, I used fusible web tape. Then the binding is stitched along the outer edge. I stitched with the top side up so that I could be sure to stitch down the center of the blue line on the edge of the binding.

While stitching the outside edge, when approaching a corner, I paused to add use my fabric marker to continue the line around the corner at the end of the of the overlapping binding. I could have done this before, but did not think of it till I reached a corner. The were two reasons to continue this line: 1. it looks more finished and in keeping with the closed knots in design and 2. the stitching would have shown there and looked out of place.

To learn how the knot patterns were generated, go to my previous post on this quilt, Knot Quilt Not Done.

 

Hand Dyed Threads and Two New Temari

My son’s science project required dyeing of fabric, which meant we had to take out  all the dye stuff. After he was done, I decided to leave it out and dye some threads in different weights and colors, with quite a few being variegated.

I really like how variegated threads add interest to temari and quilts. I used to buy variegated threads to couch on quilts, now that I have a source for white thread to dye, I will just dye what I want. Besides, it is fun to do.

Here are two temari sporting hand dyed threads.

The variegated thread is the only hand dyed in the one above. It is a simple 8 division of the ball with braided or ribbed stitching using single threads.

Wanting to explore the braided or ribbed stitching some more, I created this C8 (complex 8 division) ball. The triangles were stitched from the outside to half way to their centers using the variegated thread. Then purple thread was used to stitch the squares in the same manner, but interweaving with the other thread where they cross over. There was a small gap along the marking lines, so I wrapped the ball with two double thread bands that weave through the center of the woven squares.

The whole ball was stitched with doubled thread. It was very tedious trying to keep the threads flat and untwisted, especially when it got down to the last few rows of weaving. I persevered and finished it. It was a good project to take my mind off of being miserable with a sinus infection.

Both the variegated and the “solid” purple are hand dyed. The purple is not really a true solid as it has slight variations in value. If the fibers, whether fabric or thread, are not agitated during the dye process, then the colors will be uneven and not leveled out to be solid. Solid is easy enough to come by at the store, but I tend to lean towards the almost solid and the variegated in preference.

I am sure there will be lots of temari with hand dyed threads in my future and quilts too. These are nice weights to either hand stitch with or to couch with the sewing machine.

Temari 35 and Hand Dyed Threads

This temari is the result of wanting to try out my newly hand dyed threads. I had purchased some 5/2 perle cotton and 5/2 bamboo thread from the Woolery during the Christmas holiday. It took me a while to get around to doing the dyeing as I was trying to give my injured arm a rest. Trying is the operative word; I learned that there are many things that can be done without using dominant arm, such as dyeing.

This is a C8 (combination 8) division of the ball with the six spindle exes stitched in some of my new hand dyed thread. The little squares and the exes are outlined in a solid color purchased light purple thread. The ball just did not look finished until I added a French knot at the intersection of three points.

Below are some the hand dyed threads from the first of many batches yet to come. The perle cotton 5/2 come as one pound cones, which translates to about 2,100 yards. Enough to last a little while.

The second from the left is the one used for this temari. I plan to use the one on the far right in my next temari project. I imagine some of these will end up being used for couching to quilts or the finer weight ones (which I have not dyed any of yet) used in the bobbin for quilting.