temari 18 side view
Autumn is here. The leaves are starting to turn color and drop. The shadow are getting longer.
To celebrate the season, I made a pumpkin temari.
The lovely gold colored thread used for embroidery is some I inherited from my grandmother and had been saving for something special. I am sure she would have loved the pumpkin temari if she were alive to see it.
temari 18 bottom view
To change the sphere into a pumpkin shape, I used the thread that divides the ball into 12 segments to deform the sphere. By running the thread through the center of the ball from pole to pole and pulling the thread tight while squeezing the ball between my fingers, I was able to reshape the ball in a permanent way. To make sure that a thread did not pop and the whole thing be ruined, I used doubled thread and tied off after marking all segments and then repeated the process. I did not have a needle long enough so I used a crochet hook with an eye at the tail end as a needle.
temari 18 in progress- marking and reshaping
The stem is an idea from Joan, a member of the Temari Challenge group, for which a hank of thread is tightly twisted then allowed to twist back on itself.
temari 18 attaching stem
One end is cut and all the thread ends are stitched into the top of the pumpkin. For mine, that was about 90 thread ends which took a little over an hour and a half to do.
temari 18 top view
eccentricquilter 