Thursday, January 27, 2011

Queen Anne's Lace - Flower Temari Challenge

Queen Anne's Lace 


In our TemariChallenge Yahoo group, we have a challenge going to stitch a flower sampler with 12 different flowers. Each person picks their favorite flowers and shares pictures and tips on making it. This is definitely advanced stitching so if you are new to temari, please don't be blown away! You can stitch the same flower on a ball that isn't marked or you could mark a simple division and stitch a flower on the north pole and another on the south pole. This idea with the challenge is to work at your own level, learn from everyone else, and enjoy stitching flowers. I realize that we don't all speak the same temari "language" so if you have trouble understanding me, have a look at the glossary on my website. I hope that will help.

Here's the first one I've done - Queen Anne's Lace.  This has been one of my favorite flowers since I was a kid. It's also known as a wild carrot. Yes, you really can eat the root.

Step 1

Here's a quick overview of how I made this one. Wrap a 51cm circumference temari with MaxiLock Spruce thread. Mark in a combination 10-division with inconspicuous thread. All the stitching is done with Caron Watercolors separated so you use just one strand in the needle. With #206 Guacamole (yellowish green), stitch a solid hexagon in the center of each 6-part triangle (4 rows). Then stitch continuous triwings ( 2 rows #065 Emerald and 1 row #089 Caribbean). Now the ball has 12 pentagons ready for filling with flowers.

Step 2
Make paper templates for 3 flowers. One should be a full circle about 4cm diameter; one should be an oval about 3cm by 2 cm; one should be a half circle that is a 5cm full circle folded in half.   Fold each into 8 sections and mark the section lines with a pencil. Arrange the paper shapes in a pentagon. Place pins at the outer edges of the circles at the pencil lines.

Step 3
Remove the paper templates and use metallic green thread to stitch guidelines. For each flower, stitch a  herringbone with #206 Guacamole. Add lots of French knots (3 wraps for each) with #078 pearl.  Use #206 Guacamole to make the flower stem (stem stitch, of course!).

 I'm not sure which flower is next. I have lots of favorites. Maybe I'll go for a sunflower.