My first Temari ball embroidery project!

You beat me to it, the Amish feel “perfection lies only in God” so they will make a mistake like rotating a quilt block 90 degrees or something along those lines

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Maybe my sister and I were confusing the Amish belief with the Navajo one.

The workshop I went to was with a Japanese friendship/cultural group in North Carolina. My friend and I were teenagers at the time and we probably lowered the average age of the workshop by 40 years lol. But all older Japanese ladies who were teaching were super happy to have young people there who were interested in handcrafts.

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That’s great that you learned the skill in your teens. If you still have a Temari ball that you made, please show us!

I finished my second one tonight. I was going to just add a picture here… then I realized it met the requirements for the Decorative and Functional Crafts board challenge, so I posted it over there.

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I love the rich colours - these have been on my to-try list for awhile also.

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I have never heard about Temari balls, but it looks complicated and yours is so lovely! :orange_heart:

I am not patient when it comes to embroidery, so I will only be enjoying the ones of others :joy:

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I feel the same way about quilting. :smile:

My attention span is just too short for a project that may take weeks or months! Which is why I never finished that queen-size crochet blanket I started many years ago…

So far, I’ve been able to finish Temari balls within a couple of days. But the one I’m doing now is a lot more complicated and looks like it may take a week to finish…so it may be in danger of becoming a UFO! :smile:

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I hope it won’t! I would love to see your future projects! :+1:t3:

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My mom used to make these when I was a kid. My dad was overseas a lot and she kept herself busy with all sorts of crafts to not worry and to fill her time. I found this old and dirty one that hung from an arch in our last house that has to be over 60 years old. It is not super precise as I can see the threads underneath in spots, but I think it is worth holding onto just for sentimental reason. I wonder if this pattern is still available? It is about the size of a softball!

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Wow, that is cool! It looks like it was done with strips of raffia! Almost all the balls I’ve seen, have little bits of the underlying thread still visible.

It is thread but very tightly sewn…it has something inside but no bell…I know there are others but I have not gone through all of the boxes of her stuff yet…right now, I am searching for a cross stitch she did…I found her crochet tablecloth…is there a way to clean these? I am afraid of breaking the threads…they appear very weak in spots…maybe I should pack it up but for what?

The teacher of my class said you should never use anything wet to try to clean old Temari balls, because they will mold. She said the best way to get dust off them is just to play with them a little bit so that the dust gets knocked off.

…or did you mean how to clean the tablecloth? That I do not know.

lol yeah, when I dropped it, a cloud of dust came off…good advice…I do not want to damage it…the ball…not the tablecloth… :smiley: Thanks!