My first Temari

I have a fascination with all things Asian and love the unique so trying this Japanese craft is perfect.  After a little web searching and book purchasing here is my first Temari.  If you see pulled strings it's because my cat decided it was a great toy, ARG!  (my fault, not the cat's - I know better, she doesn't). 

I took a shortcut and started with a styrofoam ball.  I padded it with strips of quilt batting (don't you love when you can use scraps that you would otherwise throw away), wrapped it with yarn, then thread (a bright yellow that was old and probably never going to get used again) and then started the embroidery using floss and a gold thread (the gold was really hard to work with and not a great idea for a first project, but don't yo love the little bit of glitz it added?)  If they are supposed to be bright and colorful, I think I succeeded. 

Temari てまり (meaning 'hand ball' in Japanese) is a folk craft born in ancient Japan from the desire to amuse and entertain children with an embroidered toy thread ball. The art of temari began as a simple needlework craft, making a mari ball for play. Today the lovely thread-wrapped, Japanese embroidered temari balls are given as tokens of good luck. A stitched temari ball on a stand would be displayed and enjoyed as a striking example of Japanese embroidery. Temari ball craft is unique needlework, an Oriental folk art which is spreading all over the world!
More information and help go here:  http://www.japanesetemari.com/index.html

Fabric Flowers

Trying something new, my favorite thing.  I love origami and fabric and putting them both together to make these flowers was a fun experiment.  Now, what do I decorate with them? I think I need to make more.

Zhu Zhu wedding

And how about a Zhu Zhu wedding.

The little outfits are fun to make I only wish I was there to play, too. 

sunset & shadows

Check out my latest wall quilt with applique and some elements of Ricky Tims convergence quilts.  I really enjoyed trying some different designs in free motion quilting on this little quilt.  I couldn't get out to get more fabrics so I used some black moleskin for the applique and really like the way it turned out. 

Felted Rocks Tutorial

Felted Rocks Tutorial  Here is a tutorial for felting rocks.  This is not the one I used, but I can't find the one I first saw.  I think it has been deleted.  This one is very similar.

This is the third kind of felting that I have done.  In my first knitting class we knitted and felted a bag.  In the second class, a hat.  Since then I have felted some old wool sweaters and blazers to use for other projects.  The baby shoes, HERE were made from wool from one of the blazers.  If you have accidentally shrunk/felted a wool/cashmere item, I have another project in mind.  Don't throw them away, I need them. 

Felted Rocks

I saw this post about felted rocks for checkers and decided to try it myself
Homespun Checkers

I did not want to hand sew and these squares turned out kinda wonky, not sure I like that.  I had a couple of issues with the assembly and think I might try it again sometime.  Making the felted rocks was a ton of fun.  I thought this might be fun for the grandchildren to try, but it was a bit more challenging than I anticipated.