Smalls SAL June 2017

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No idea what the Smalls SAL is all about? Click the graphic above to learn more (and see lovely smalls from others!)

All I managed last month was finishing a small I had already finished the stitching on, but I'll take it as a win!

This is Keep a Little Secret by Just Nan, also known as She Who Makes You Stitch Really Intricate Designs, Only to Hide Them in a Tin or Box. I love it, anyway.

Why did I have so little time this month, you may ask? Well, I spent two weeks in Shanghai and and Tokyo! And let me tell you, jet lag is REAL. I'll just show you one thing for now...I "rescued" this temari from an airport gift shop on the way out of Tokyo.

Isn't it gorgeous? I say I "rescued" it because...airport gift shop. And it was only about $20! I know how much work went in to this temari, and I will appropriately appreciate it!

JiffNotes
Yup, I was gone for a while...but I have a good excuse...I was out of the country!

The Geekend That Was, 3/18 (Madness and Idiocy Edition)

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It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. No wait...it was just the worst of times. That was last week at work. I could write a book on it, but let's just say that, convinced someone else was not doing their job, I made everyone's life miserable when, really, my stuff was creating problems. I also spent almost the whole week on this, while everything else slipped further and further behind. I am now so far behind, and my knowledge gap is so wide, it just looks undoable. Plus, for some reason the pollen is making me crazy this year. Not miserable, CRAZY. Like Sunday morning I wasn't sure if I wanted to sob or kill someone.

Anyway! You came here to see pretty pictures! I love tulips and I was so miserable the hubby brought these home when I made him go get dinner for, like, the eleventy-fifth time.

 

You also want to hear about how the hermitting went, yes? For International Hermit and Stitch Weekend?
Um...stitch? I feel like some of that happened, but not much. Let's talk about how March Madness is going, instead!!

We left off with Wednesday, when I teased a partridge. Sorry...teased about a partridge. I did not actually mock some poor bird.

 

Isn't he GREAT?? I love his crazy colors. This is a JABC design and was a kit that Drema at Needlecraft Corner did.

Thursday I pulled this needlepoint Santa from the Sparkly Compote of Decree.

 

I got his face done, and some more on the hat band. Not too shabby.

We interrupt this weekend report with breaking news...the pollen count today is 8461. EIGHT THOUSAND, four hundred and sixty-one!!!

Well, that's just WRONG. Especially when the scale only goes up to, what...150 or something? I've talked about this before. Yup, this is a record, but this is NOT one of the categories where you want to be a record-setter.

Friday, there was a lot of drama with the hubby's plane flight back from Arkansas (business). The plane's oversold--they're asking for volunteers to get off the plane but he won't get home until tomorrow--if they kick him off, he gets $1300!!! Eventually, he "volunteered". He really got kicked off, but by volunteering, they bumped someone off a later flight and he got home only 2 hours late and $600 in vouchers richer. Not bad for 2 hours work. ;) So I didn't get much stitching done on Peacock Cypher.

 

I got some of those letters done, but I'M NOT TELLING HOW MANY. (Hint: it was not "all".)

Saturday I drew a knitting project, but I wasn't feeling it, so I drew again. AND THERE IT WAS...the Golden Ticket of the SCOD...the WILDCARD SLIP. That meant I could work on whatever I wanted. I could even start something!!! I think I'd said before that I wanted to start the shawl that I got the pattern and yarn for in Asheville when I drew my first wildcard. Well, there was one small problem with that, which I noticed when I wound the yarn (this would be the second part of the "idiocy" I mentioned):

 

I GOT TWO DIFFERENT COLORS. OF YARN. Not two different dye lots, people, TWO DIFFERENT COLORS. But didn't they look like the same color in skein form (scroll to the bottom)? Just, you know, a little different, but we all know how wacky Malabrigo colors/dye lots are, right? I'M NOT ON THE CRAZY KNITTER TRAIN ALONE, AM I?? I seem to recall the shop lady saying something about this (something helpful that a normal, sane person would have heeded, like, "these are two different colors"), but I just thought one dye lot looked a little darker. I can't make this shawl work like this...I thought about knitting the edge in the darker color, but I think I will run out of yarn that way. My hope is I'll be able to find another skein of the right-hand one at Stitches that's not too crazy different of a dye lot. IT CAN'T BE WORSE THAN AN ENTIRE DIFFERENT COLOR! (I hope those aren't famous "last words.")

So instead, I decided to complement my "wearin' o' the green" with some "stitchin' o' the green" and picked up my neglected temari:

 

Sadly, most of the time was spent cutting out those !@#$% little circles. Actually, it wasn't that bad, and they will save 5-6 measurements each. But it did mean I only got 1/2 of one path done...the pink pins are for the second half of the path, but the written instructions aren't doing it for me. So, I'll watch the video that our fabulous teacher provided, and based on other vids, I'm sure that will clear it right up for me.

I'll leave you with a teaser shot of Spring Blooms at the Botanical Gardens, where we went Saturday afternoon:

 

This might explain why I was wacked out on pollen Sunday morning....

This morning I drew ANOTHER WILDCARD!! That's what I get for complaining that none had shown up thus far. =) What should I stitch on tonight?? Suggestions??

JiffNotes
See how I bookended the post with tulips? This is some quality blogging right here, people. Quality.

The Geekend That Was, 2/19

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Saturday morning we headed to the Botanical Gardens again because Orchid Daze has started! I want to do a separate post because I took a LOT of pictures. But here's a taste:

 

The day turned misty and rainy, so we headed home, making a perfect evening for hermitting. =)

The hermitting was aided greatly by the hubby's acquisition earlier in the week...

 

Oh yeah. Even the Christmas episode.

I managed to finish the second lesson on my temari ball. I'm still a week behind, but at least I'm catching up. I had a tough time finishing the marking and doing the first round of stitching on the ball. I learned a lot, though. I really should write it down so I actually remember it. =P

 

It doesn't look too bad, although there is a technical term for the way my shapes (pentagons and hexagons...see 'em?) came out, and that term is "wonky." =)

Then I pulled out Peacock Tapestry and decided that instead of continuing to wallow in pear leaves, I might be better motivated to finish it if I had a pretty peacock to look at while I stitched. So I started on him...see his little birdy feet?

 

There was no stitching on Sunday...after church we went to Michael's parents' house and played two games of Settlers of Catan (BOTH of which Michael won, ONE of them by UTTERLY BETRAYING ME) and then saw War Horse. I didn't enjoy it as much as I expected, but that could have been because of the interference on the digital projector (the lighter scenes of the movie looked like they were shot through a continual drizzle), or because of the couple eating Doritos out of a VERY CRINKLY bag the ENTIRE MOVIE.

JiffNotes
I'll take two days of hermitting next month, please.

Distraction by Temari

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Thank you for all the kind comments on Helena! I'm most pleased that it was delivered before the little one was...not little enough anymore. =)

Sooo...I had a list of what I was going to be working on this month. How's that been going for me, you ask? Well...I kinda registered for two online classes, which started February 1st and 3rd. I have spent zero time on one of them, and an inordinate amount of time on the other! As in, I got started a little late and completely underestimated how much time I'd need to put into it! It's a temari class. If you don't know what a temari is, it's basically a thread ball that's geometrically divided and then stitched on. The craft originated in Japan (some say Buddhists brought it over, but the Japanese definitely perfected it). I think you'll be able to see a picture of the temari on the group page here.

When I signed up, I knew it was going to be on a larger temari than I'd worked before (you usually start off your career on balls that have a 3"--about 7.5cm--diameter styrofoam ball at their core). Like this:

 

(Measuring cup included for size reference.)

So when the dimension was given as circumference, in centimeters, I didn't really pay attention. I just "assumed" that it was going to be on the slightly larger 4" (10cm) styrofoam base, kinda like this one I bought in Japan:

 

IMAGINE MY SURPRISE when I started wrapping and wound up (heh. Wound, like wrapping the ball) with THIS:

 

HOLEY SHAMOLEY.

It was a lot like the Three Stooges around here as I wrapped the thing. It constantly popped out of my hand and flew across the room. I even managed to knock over an entire glass of water in the process! Hmmm...I should've taken a picture of me holding it to illustrate. Maybe if I'd played more basketball (and by "more", I mean "some")...

If the size of the ball isn't enough, try and wrap your head around the size of the needles...

 

I've never used "proper" temari needles before.

I've also never done a Combination 10 division before, either (shhhhh...I think I was supposed to have done one as a prerequisite, but I'd done a C8, so I thought I'd wing it).

Here's the C10 division completed. This class teaches us how to do 32 centers on the C10 (don't worry, I'm not sure what that means, either!). Here, I've started putting in the extra pins necessary to complete the marking.

 

Just in case you've done temari before and are interested (and so I will remember!), the method I used to mark the C10 was to just use the V-ruler to place 12 pins on the ball. Your other choices would be to start from a simple 10 division or from a simple 4, apparently. It worked out pretty well...only one of my triangles was off, but I suspect that happened because my ball wasn't totally round (and I suspect THAT happened one of the times it flew across the room and thunked onto the floor...as opposed to the times when it just zipped over and thwacked my hubby. Hilarity!)

I'm going to need a few more cups of tea before this is done!!

JiffNotes
You know you're in trouble when the directions say, "If you've never done this before, allow 9 hours for this step." !!!

Temari Under Glass

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Southpaw Stitcher asked if I made the temari you can see peeking out behind my last TUSAL. Yep, I sure did! So I thought I'd talk about them a little.

Edited to add... First, if you have never heard of temari, they are Japanese thread balls. If you'd like a thorough history, look here. (Much eye candy to had at that site as well, though for better (and free) how-to information, visit Temari Kai.)

The first temari I made is not pictured here (or anywhere, LOL!) It was supposed to be a kiku, but the teacher's directions in class were...not to the level of detail I needed. =) When she discovered my error, she attempted to push the threads to the places they needed to go. The result was not very pretty. I did stitch the other side as it was meant to be done, but overall it's not a very pleasing temari. I've kept it for posterity, but it's not on display.

After that false start, I tried a different design, and decided that I wanted to make ornaments for my three sisters and my mother. I think this one is called Interlocked Diamonds.

I also made one for Michael's parents, but I never got a picture of it!

Click any picture to biggify from this point on...

Next, I decided to try that pesky Kiku that didn't happen in the class, since I had bought one of Diana Vandervoort's books and this design was included.
This is one of the ones that's "under glass". When my hubby's aunt saw it, she jokingly said, "My colors are..." So, of course I had to send her one for Christmas:

I thought the first side had too much yellow, so I made the second side a little different.

This is another one that's "under glass":

It was my first "complex" division. The kikus and diamonds above are on "simple" divisions. That is, if you picture the globe with an equator line, and about 8 longitude lines, that's a simple 8. A complex 8 involves making a simple 8 division, then picking a new North pole somewhere around the equator and stitching some more longitude lines oriented from the new pole. Then you do that once more at a certain point. I won't explain here without pictures...if you're interested, head over to Temari Kai, which has great resources and a host of patterns.

Here's another C8 temari, an all-over design (no thread wrap showing):

Hmmm...I think this one's down in the Craft Cabana1

JiffNotes
For a few more temari pictures, head to my {old, languishing, obsolete} website.