TEMARI

I recently saw an article on  "Temari," a Japanese technique that involves decoratively wrapping silk scraps or stitching threads onto a ball form to create an intricately colorful globe.  The images intrigued me, so I started looking for more links online.  It looks like there are Temari displays in a lot of Asian museums, but I had some trouble in finding a museum link about Temari.  So here are some links to some websites by Temari enthusiasts.

Temari were originally used in games, but over time they evolved into an artform made by noblewomen and from there into a traditional New Year's gift from a mother to a daughter, as a symbol of the mother's best wishes.  Some even contain bells or secret messages.
Here's a link to the first article I read. It includes some of the history of Temari as well as some amazing close-up shots of NanaAkua's work.  She is a 92-year old lady who learned Temari in her 60's.  The photographs are by her granddaughter.

If you would like to see more of NanaAkua's work, here is a link to NanaAkua's Flikr account.

Here is a great PDF Tutorial on how to start a simple Temari piece, with step-by-step images.

For those who would enjoy learning more about the History of Temari, I also found this site, which is devoted to Temari.  It also provides some images and a more detailed How-To Instruction section for if you would like to try making some yourself.

CONSTRUCTION TAKE TWO: TROUBLESHOOTING YOUR PROTOTYPE

Finished Bug #1

In June, I showed you how I constructed a prototype for a new plushie idea, a bug with lots of eyes and legs.  I took that same "bug" blueprint, and adapted it into a second prototype, to try to streamline the design and iron out some technical difficulties.

 

To begin with, the pre-stuffed legs were too hard to attach to the body.  I had had to stitch over the leg-body seams 4-5 times, and I still had to trouble-shoot with a sewing needle.  

It was a big pain to attach the pre-stuffed legs securely.

A possible solution involved creating longer leg allowances at the tops of the legs (wide, flat flaps to sew into the body) for sewing, which would have still left me trying to sew 4 layers of fabric securely together.  What I ended up choosing to do was to fuse the top leg panels and my side panels into one piece.



Cutting out the pieces for the body



Side View: Upper leg panels are now part of the side panel.

I sewed the body together, taking care to test all joins.  I still like to sew all arm joins twice, for greater structural integrity.

View from in Front.  A gap is left open at neck for stuffing.

Upside-Down: Lower leg panels are attached to the belly panel.

Basic Body: View from Above.

Foot Pads and Claws were sewn into the legs by hand, then sewn with the machine.  This quick hand-stitching allowed me more control in the placement of the various, delicate parts, and then the machine gave me the strong, tight join I needed.

The bug was turned right-side-out, and then eyes were attached along the side panels.  The eyes I already had made were too big, so I created a bunch of smaller pairs for my new, more petite plushies.

Lastly, I stuffed up the plushies and sewed up the neck from the arm to the nose, and added a mandible/moustache accent.  This gave the muzzle more prominence, and also covered any any hand-stitching wrinkles and my final knots.



Red-Eyes & Gold Mandibles 

Golden Eyes & Red Mandibles





CONSTRUCTION USING THREAD



Here is a super-basic introduction to some common types of construction using thread or yarn.  Basically, fabric is made by interweaving threads in some sort of pattern that locks them together.  The techniques throughout history are countless...Here are a few...

 

Knotting

Remember friendship braids & lanyards?  If you knot colored yarn, you create a sturdy, patterned band of fabric.  Each knot creates a pixel of color.  You can control pattern with the knots, or even make eyelets (decorative or functional holes in your fabric), by how you swap the threads around.  You can string beads onto the threads and knot them into the eyelets, etc.

Making a loose, open-work knotting structure with thick yarn or twine is how you make macrame or netting.

Braiding/Cord-making:  Kumihimo...



A traditional wooden Kumihimo stand

Braiding is a twisting of 3 or more threads that creates a patterned cord or fabric.  Frequently the "ends" of hand-made fabric are braided together to create an accent border.

Kumihimo is a traditional Japanese cord-making technique that takes braiding to another level.

A series of yarn bobbins (thread-wound spools) hang from a hollow, often spool-type wood structure, with their ends knotted together and hanging down the center.  In contemporary kumihimo construction, they may instead be threaded onto a foam card with narrow grooves around the edge to wedge thread into.  


A contemporary Kumihimo weaving disk

The yarns are secured together, and then the bobbins are moved from spot to spot along the device's rim, weaving the threads over and around each other in a predetermined choreography to create a patterned cord  that feeds through the hollow middle section.

A lot of contemporary Kumihimo is made of woven strands of beads that make striking jewelry.

Here is an amazing example of traditional Kumihimo.  In this link, a member of the UK Braid Society demonstrates kumihimo with three of her kumihimo frames.

Lacemaking: Tatting, Bobbin-Lace, etc.

Lace-making basically involves using a very fine thread (frequently just sewing thread!) to create an open-work fabric.  There are hundreds (thousands?) of kinds of lace-making.

This is an example of Clones Lace, by a friend of mine.  Her multi-great grandmothers used to do piecework for the lace industry near Clones, Co. Monaghan, Ireland, around the turn of the 19th century.

Tatting uses a sewing or specialized tatting needle in much the same way as crochet, knotting and looping a single thread to create little loops that are in turn knotted and looped into larger, more complex loops, which all come together to form a pattern.  

RustiKate provides an excellent series of tutorials for tatting on YouTube.  Here is a link to Lesson #1.

Bobbin Lace involves any number of thread-wound bobbins (spools), that are twisted and braided together all at once to create an image or pattern that grows from the inside out.  Each thread is held in place as needed by pins.  Very ambitious pieces use dozens of pins & bobbins!

There are some very exciting bobbin-lace videos on YouTube...A lot of ladies seem to do traditional bobbin-lace-making in open-air markets...You should check them out!

Here is one slowed-down (!) demonstration of Bobbin Lace-Making, and here is the making of a small Madonna piece, also demonstrated slowly.

Crochet & Knitting: Understanding Slip-Knots.

Many people get intimidated by crochet & knitting, but it all breaks down to slip-knots, in various combinations and orientations.

What Is A Slip Knot?

A slip-knot is basically a loose loop of thread that is pulled through a twisted loop or  knot which is then tightened and holds the loop in place.  By pulling on the loose end (the unsecured end) of the slip-knot, it "slips" back out and unties.  An easy example is to think of is shoes: the bows of tied shoe-laces are both slip-knots.

 

Crochet (1 slip-knot at a time)

A crocheted scarf with a crochet border

With crochet, the crocheter is making a continuous chain of slip-knots.  If he or she were to remove the crochet hook and pull on the unsecured yarn at the top of the chain, the entire chain would untie.  To make fabric, one simply starts looping through the finished chain from the side, as well as from the top, most recent loop.  It helps to think of crochet as a zig-zaging line of yarn.  You can double this line back and forth as much as you like, to create a shape or pattern.

 

Knitting (a series of slip-knots in a row, all at once)

In contrast, knitting is also employing slip knots, but several of them all at once, in rows.  Each slip knot is looped over a knitting needle, forming your most recent row.  If you took the unfinished knitting project off the needle, all of the unsecured loops would slip out of the loops from the row before, etc.  

There are many named stitches for knitting and crocheting, but even if you don't have any formal training, you can create something free-form by “increasing” (creating multiple loops by threading through an origin loop to increase width) or “decreasing”  (combining multiple loops into 1 loop to gradually shrink your width) to achieve the effect you want.  It's a learning process--I don't know any fancy patterns or stitches, but I can make the yarn do what I want it to do to create a shape I want...usually.  



I personally am really impressed by patterns, but I have a long way to go to understanding all of the terminology.  However, you'll find, that as long as you can keep track of a few stitches, you can try free-form knitting or crocheting.  This hands-on learning is fun and will help you in following or creating patterns later...

Get Creative!: Open-work & Cabling...



A couple examples of cable and pattern-work, knitted by my aunt.

You can use any of the previous techniques to create a visual or structural pattern.  Switch up the colors or add beads, and the fabric instantly looks different.  Increase or decrease stitches to change the width and structure of your fabric.  Alternate knots or stitches to create a texture change or to create eyelets to work decorative holes into your design. Try cabling, which is when you separate your knitting into sections and swap them around with other sections to create a braiding effect in your knitted end-product.

Here are a couple scarves I made.  I knitted each color separately, on its own needle.  Whenever my colors overlapped in my braid, I would knit them together for a stitch, and then continue knitting. The result: a sort of free-standing cable...

If you want to learn traditional techniques and terminology, I recommend checking out a pattern or video that has step-by-step visuals, so that you can follow along with your own equipment.  Some people learn better with tangible demonstrations, while others prefer to scrutinize charts or diagrams.  But I find that no matter how you learn, understanding the mechanics of yarn, and the differing appearance of those loops and weave structures and patterns from the "front" and "back," can really help when trying to read a pattern later.  For example, "knit" and "purl" are the same stitch, but facing opposite sides of the fabric.  It can also be helpful to compare your progressing fabric with a picture, to help you grasp the pattern.


Weaving

Adding a thin colorful thread to create visual contrast.

Weaving is a series of threads that "weave" over and under each other to form a fabric.  Unlike knitting or crocheting, which use one thread to build structure, weaving uses many all at once.  The "warp" is the group of threads that are threaded vertically through the loom, and each thread will lift or lower according to a weaving pattern.  This raising and lowering creates a "shed," a gap, through which you pass a horizontal "weft" thread. With the next row, the combination of raised and lowered warp threads changes, locking in the previous row of yarn and creating a new shed.



This is an example of Bronson Lace, which is woven on a loom.







An old example of my free-style embroidery...

Once you know a few techniques: Experiment!

Once you know a few techniques, you can go wild!    Sew things onto other things! Get ideas from other parts of the world!

Here's an interesting fusion of crochet and patchwork from Cotacachi, Ecuador.  Scraps of left-over leather are crocheted into a scarf.

Hat or Handbag?
Here is an example of a free-style bag I made, that could have ended up as a hat or a bag...I knitted the bag according to whim, increasing and decreasing the diameter to give it a little more volume. I then crocheted the flowers and sewed them onto the bag as decorative pockets.   Add handles and a lining and voila!

After: Handbag!!

Before: Hat!!

Add: Lining & Handles





The "Back to Back" International Wool Challenge

This last month, my guild had a booth at the local Fiber Art Fiesta.  It's a growing local event that draws weavers and spinners from the area, and showcases their work to the community.  There's a weaver's barn, and a music stage, and even a few live alpacas.  There's a lot of enthusiasm, and MOUNTAINS of yarn for sale.  Two of the tents shaded spinners and some of the San Diego "Back to Back" team.

Several ladies in the area have gotten really into competing in the International "Back-to-Back" Wool Challenge, where a team shears, cards, spins and knits a sweater as a timed event.  They have 8 team members and a goal of less than 8 hours to succeed.  The event benefits local shepherds and spinners, the industry as a whole, and cancer research.  The San Diego team demonstrates at local museums and fiber events to warm up for the annual challenge, and to educate about both cancer and fiber arts.

The current Guinness world record was established in 2004 by Australia’s Merriwa Jumbucks, with a World Record Time of 4 hours  51 minutes and 14 seconds (!)

Here's a fun article on the results of this past June's "Back to Back" event.

A team from the Netherlands placed first, beating both the Netherlands and Mainland Europe records.

Neat Color Experiment--Try It Out!

Here's a fun color experiment that my study group tried out.  It's from Laura Bryant's A Knitter's Guide to Color.

Basically, you take all of your yarn and arrange it by "color saturation" or "weight."  A weightier color is a brighter, stronger color.  So for example, a pale yellow would be lighter than a bright yellow or a brilliant green.

Here's my study group arranging our samples of yarn:

The fascinating thing is, if you arrange yarn by weight this way, you can take a sub-section of your rainbow, and those colors will all work together in a weaving or other yarn project, even if you might not see the affinity at first glance.  These colors will make a good "color story," a color combination where all the colors enrich each other but sort of blend into each other from afar, and where no one color competes for center stage.

How do you know if you've arranged the colors correctly by weight?  Here's the neat part!  Take a picture of your yarn "river" and switch the image to black and white.  My camera has a black-and-white function, or you can do this on your computer, or in a copy machine.  Have you arranged your colors correctly?  Take a look at what happens!

The yarn samples in color

The same yarn samples in black & white

You have a perfect gray scale.

Isn't that cool?!

 

Edit: When choosing your colors for a new project, Laura Bryant suggests using this "color river" to your advantage.  To create a harmonious, blended effect, choose colors that are near each other in the river.  If you desire a bolder, contrasting accent color, or stronger emphasis on your pattern, throw in a color from a different section.

 

Here's a preview of her DVD if you're interested in learning more about color combinations and "color stories."  The DVD & digital download are available at interweave.com (this is a great website for all sorts of tutorials).

A QUICK INTRODUCTION TO COLOR THEORY

So, a lot of people get intimidated by color theory terms and just give up.  
But everyone uses aspects of color theory to choose color combinations in real life, even if they don’t know the terms for what they’re matching together.

Here’s an introduction to the basics of color theory.

Let’s start with the 3 base colors: Blue, Yellow and Red.  These are “Primary colors” because they are the first, most basic colors that you mix together to get everything else (they are also an example of “Triad Colors”—3 colors that are equidistant around the color wheel).

Then you mix each of these colors together.  Now you color wheel goes: Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Red, Purple (also called “Violet”).

Now mix those colors together along the wheel: Blue, Blue-Green, Green, Yellow-Green, Yellow, Yellow-Orange, Orange, Red-Orange, Red, Red-Violet, Violet, Blue-Violet.  These are “Intermediate Colors” (“in the middle”).

As you can see, you can keep blending your colors forever, getting a more and more complex color wheel.

OK, so you have colors! Now what do you do with them?

Pick one "Key Color" to experiment with.  How about Blue?  First, make a scale of that color from black to white.  This is called "Monochromatic Color."  So all you really need to start creating is a single color!

Now, how do you match different colors together? If you choose a Key Color on the color wheel the easiest thing is to match it with the color directly opposite it on the wheel.  These are “Complementary Colors” or “Contrast Colors.”  They always look happy and loud together.   Your eye is drawn to anything with so much contrast.   This is why you frequently see Blue and Orange together, or Red and Green… An interesting phenomenon is that if you mix complementary colors together, you will get browns that eventually reach a greyer color when exactly evenly mixed.

“Tetradic Color Schemes” are a combination of two sets of complementary colors.  This can be a little overwhelming, unless you use these colors judiciously.

What if you want a more harmonious grouping of colors, that don’t contrast as loudly?   Try “Analogous Colors,” which are all in a row in one section of the wheel (“analogous” means “similar,” or “related”).  For example, Violet, Blue and Green, or Blue, Blue-Green and Green.  These are colors that are comfortably near each other.  This variation along a single color group is frequently seen in nature, and feels pleasant to the eye.

 “Split Complementary Colors” combine the idea of complementary colors and analogous colors—you pair your Key Color with an analogous group of its complementary color.

With all of these color combinations, the eye is more relaxed if one color is dominant.  But it all depends on what effect you are trying to create.  How sharp a contrast are you seeking? How soothing?  How much color variation?  Take a look at some book covers or ads and see what effect the designers are trying to achieve.  Try designing something along one of these color schemes, and see what happens if you add another color...