String Balls

Art Fiber Fest is approaching fast. At these festivals, people often make some small pretty things to trade with others. It's fun to come home with a bunch of delightful tiny things handmade by the people you meet. The organizer chose "ORBS" as the theme his year, so my trades are these little string balls. I learned how to make the traditional TEMARI, Japanese string balls, from a book a few years back and I gave them all away. They were about 4 or 5 inches in diameter and they had beautiful, embroidered geometric designs all centered around one unifying "equator" called the OBI, which is also the word for the belt you tie around your waist to hold your kimono in place.

I used ping pong balls as a base for these, and found them difficult to wind because of the smaller circumference. Knowing the traditional Japanese designs would be very labor intensive and almost impossible to stitch on such a small surface with a hard substrate, I instead beaded them and stitched them in a freeform design (very non-Temari-like). They're cute, I think!