Temari

Day 65: Mind your spelling, here! We're talking about Japanese thread balls (temari), not thicker soy sauce (tamari). This art was originally developed in China, but was taken up in Japan at least 1000 years ago. In the traditional style, the ball is made entirely of thread, coarser in the center and finest on the exterior. Oftentimes the last layers are wound with very fine silk. Modern practitioners (at least lazy ones like me) start with a felt-covered styrofoam core and use materials such as #12 perle cotton and sewing thread.

Once the initial colour layer has been laid on, the ball is marked out with pins in equal divisions (in this case, 16), and then the decorative threads are wound according to a pattern. Many different designs can be achieved using the same division, but care must be taken to keep the segments precisely equal both in pinning and while wrapping. Occasionally, a final layer may be stitched in place, such as has been done here with the gold cross-hatch encasing the horizontal band.

This design ("Chrysanthemum") is one of my favourites. I haven't made temari in years and although I've given many as gifts, I've only retained a few for the Christmas tree.