Temari #2

This week on Monday I had my very own Temari class. I went with my friends Joey and Katie from America. I had never tried doing a temari ball. I really liked it. It turns out it is very mathematic.

Before the class even started we had homework. We had to wrap a Styrofoam ball with yarn and then thread. I was at a camp before my friends came, so my mom had done my homework for me because she figured my friends would already be done. Turns out they only had their's 1/2 done so I did my own and my mom used the one she made for me.

Evolution of wrapping: First Joey and I were standing and wrapping (which got tiring really fast), then we were sitting at the table but Joey and I started dropping our half wound balls that unraveled really fast about 5 times in a row. That led to Joey sitting down on the floor while I sat at the table. But it got lonely soon and I moved down there with him. Every one used black thread and yarn except me who used grey.     

Even though everyone's (Joey, Katie, their mom, my mom and most importantly me) ball looked almost the same before the class, everyones look almost nothing alike after class. Joey and I were the only ones who made the same design. And even then, our colours were completely different. The designs were really different also. Joey and I made candy stripes. Those are basically lots of thick lines going around the ball in all directions. Katie made Camila. That is 6, 4 color squares and designs in-between. Their mom made the chrysanthemum - 2 flowers on each pole and a band in the middle. My mom made the Zig-Zag (see below).


It was my mom's 8th time taking the class. She had the most difficult one to make. My friends mom made a really cool one that was pretty hard. The kids had mostly the same level.  

Before we could decorate the plain balls, we had to do some math. The teacher told us to "imagine the ball is a globe". From there on we pinned a strip of paper with a pin and called that the north pole. Then we had to see how long around the ball was and cut the paper to that length. Then you fold the paper in half and the end of the paper is the south pole and you pin the spot. Then you fold the paper in half again and the half point is where the equator pin is. After that it depends on design you are doing. I had to pin the equator on 8 points. First you eyeballed it, then the strip of paper is folded into 8th. You the cut a notch on the corner ( very smart I think ) and that tells you exactly where you need to put the pins one unfolded. In my opinion, that is a little too mathey for me.

Making a Temari ball was really really fun. I really thought it would be easier because when my mom does it looks so easy. And really fun. The lesson was 2 1/2 hours but it was so fun it felt like 30 min. My favourite part was finishing it (finally). It was so nice to see the final project and it felt really worth all the effort. My least favourite part was the thread. The metallic one I was using frayed lots. That made it look not as nice at the beginning and end.  I really hope I can learn some more designs soon and grow the collection.