For Christmas, I got the most beautiful book by Anna Diamond on making temari balls. The designs are very intricate looking but basically just herringbone stitch. I had some of the materials on hand but what’s missing are the polystyrene balls the author recommends. Apparently they are smoother than styrofoam balls and also denser so that the marking pins don’t move. I checked out temari on Google but the supplies listed are threads and patterns. Has anyone heard of a source for these balls? rjf
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If you google "polystyrene balls" you get 10,600 hits.
Well, I looked a quite a few of them....amazing! Any place that actually sold the balls and told you the price was located in Australia or New Zealand. Any place that was located in the States and sold them didn't include prices. I will look again tomorrow but don't you think that the most likely spots are the ones that get listed at the beginning? The listings seem to get very obscure when you get into the 300's. Thanks for reminding me how to get started. rjf
How obnoxious not to show the price. A way to get around this is to enter $ as a search term. The earliest hits aren't always the best, sometimes it pays to wade through a bunch.
There is a wonderful temari site temarikai.com that has lots of help including resources. There is also a very active discussion group on Yahoo.I recently discovered temari myself and love it. To me, it's especially facinating the way incidental patterns develop as I am stitching the main pattern and I am always surprised at the way it turns out.
I see that it's going to take awhile to get exactly the right distance between stitiches to get it to come out right but I'm gaining on it. The book I have recommended darning needles. I knew there was a use for those things! I'll check out that site, thanks for the info. rjf
ps. I posted a picture in the photo gallery.
A great site! It was interesting to see how they made them, especially putting a marble and a penny in the middle of the ball....which was styrofoam! So maybe I can abandon the search for polystyrene. I think I'll go buy a large supply of frozen dinners so I can really concentrate on this new obsession. rjf
Hi and a Happy New Year to you!
Several years ago our EGA chapter devoted a program to making temari balls. It seems to me that the balls came from the Ben Franklin store in our area. As I recall they worked out beautifully.
There used to be a page or two on temari on the HGTV site. There was a link to Diana Vandervoort's website. She is another one who wrote a book. Her site was extremely informative should you need any more info.
From JudyG
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