Hi, all! I am working now on rather complicated Pentagons division of temari tutorial, but it will be logically correct to do tutorial on making temari base first.

Please, consider this tutorial as one of many ways to do base. When you try it out, you’ll feel where you can make changes to improve process for yourself. You can use other materials, of course, mine are not obligatory.

I like the idea of recycling in crafts. I am as an environmentalist always thinking about giving new life to old things. I always use plastic bags and waste cloth to make temari base. In this tutorial I’ll show you how I use them.

Take plastic container of chocolate egg with surprise. Put some noisemaker like button, coin or sea shell into it.

Put rattling plastic container into plastic bag(s) and crumple it into the sphere. Cut old t-shirt or other clothes made from stockinet into stripes and wrap plastic ball in it. Try to avoid bumps and make ball as round as possible. Using soft and elastic stockinet is the best way to control the roundness.

Wrap until circumference reaches about 80-90% of desired ball size.

Now wrap the ball into soft and rather thick yarn. You have to cover all stockinet managing the perfect roundness. Don’t lay yarn too tightly and don’t do it loose. This layer will be the foundation of stitches. It should be tough enough to carry the burden of embroidery, keeping stitches in their places and soft enough to let the needle to go through smoothly.

Wrap until circumference becomes slightly bigger then desired temari size. Next layer will make yarn to crush in and make the base a bit smaller). Thread a needle with yarn’s tail and bury it in previous layers of base.

Time for the last layer. This will be the surface of your ball, so choose color wisely, according to your pattern. I recommend using plain sewing thread cotton or polyester; it should be thin to achieve the best result. Don’t use fancy thread like silk of metallic for the first time, it is very difficult to work with it, wrapping will be always slipping away. Stockinet fiber (I’ve wrote about it before) is also good for beginners.

Wrap until previous layer is not visible. Try to do wrapping randomly, avoid laying several rounds at one place. Randomly crossed threads make base look great! Thread a needle with thread’s end and make several stitches to hide it underground.

The base is ready for marking and stitching. Roll it on flat surface to ensure it is perfectly round. If it is not - don’t worry. There are a lot of patterns not very sensitive to surface imperfections. I’ll tell about it sometimes.

I hope you’ll make your first base easily and my tutorial will help. Please, ask your questions anytime, using the Post Comment form in the bottom of this page.