Japanese Temari, A Colorful Spin on an Ancient Craft

 

Mitsubishi Stars

Photo of Mitsubishi Stars

This is an advanced temari design that presents an intriguing puzzle of shapes.   Three red diamonds form the "mitsubishi" pattern in the background.  Cream colored stars surround red 5-petal flowers.

After you have figured out placement for the green wrapped bands, the rest of the stitching is not hard; in fact, it is quite relaxing.   The design is called an 'all-over' design because when you are finished, the stitching will entirely cover the ball.  Well, except for the little bit of thread wrap showing inside each cream colored star.

Supplies

41.5 cm circumference ball wrapped in dark red thread and marked in a combination 10-division.

Thread for marking and outlining the green wraps: Ricky Tim's Razzle Dazzle #WB21R271 (mango tango)

Thread for stitching:
Anchor#5 perle cotton #255 ( green), #387 (cream, dark), #44 (carmine rose, dark) *Note - purchase 2 skeins of each color
Kreinik medium (#16) braid 032 used to outline the stars


 

Step 1 

Place a blue pin in the center of each 6-part triangle on the ball.  With the same thread used to mark the ball, come up next to a blue pin and complete one wrap of the ball as shown in green below.  It is important to wrap to the outside of each blue pin (relative to the center of the pentagon).   Then wrap 5 rows with green perle cotton and one row with the metallic marking thread.

wrap threads

Each wrapped band is made up of 5 rows of green perle cotton surrounded by one row of metallic on each side.

wrap 1


Step 2

For all the remaining wrapped bands, you will wrap the same band of 1 row metallic thread, then 5 rows green perle cotton and then 1 row metallic thread. Each time you begin a new wrapped band, come up under any previous band so the starts and stops don't show.

When you come to an intersection and you need to decide whether to wrap over or stitch under a previous band of thread, follow this rule:  look at the intersection with the wide sides oriented to top and bottom. Position the new band so the band on top runs from top left to bottom right. 

 

Hint for wraps

Note that on this particular pattern, not all of the wraps to complete a 32 multi-centered ball are done.   So, even though all of the intersections look like the drawing above, when you follow one wrap around the finished ball, it does not always go under then over then under then over (etc!) the crossing wraps.  If you added more wraps to complete the 32 multi-centered division, you would see this over/under pattern.

When 3 wrapped bands intersect in the center of a 6-part triangle, the crossings will look like this:

 

Wraps intersection

Second wrap:

wraps 2


Step 3

Third wrap

wrap 3


Step 4

Fourth wrap

wrap 4


Step 5

Fifth wrap

wrap 5


Step 6

Complete all the wraps on the rest of the ball. (Please excuse the out-of-focus picture!!)

photo of wraps completed


 

 

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