Da palle temari piccolissimi ai yubinuki – capitolo 2

 

Queste due palle temari sono piu’ piccole – circonferenza 18 e 18,5cm; cotone di perla #8. Un disegno tradizionale: <due scaglie, o doppia scaglia>.  20 punti per ogni sezione o ’spicchio’; in questo disengo, ci sono 8 sezioni.

Takahara               Ohnishi

Vedete  Takahara, Yubinuki to hana-temari-cho, pagina 81 (foto pagina 22, #13); il kit di yubinuki per le principianti, C.P. Hayashi, sul suo sito, www.etsy.com (cerca: “yubinuki thimble ring”); Ohnishi, Yubinuki (ISBN 9784140311400), pagine 60-61.

I continue to step down from big to medium to small temari (and thinner threads) eventually to yubinuki proper. The ‘double-scale’ or ‘two-scale’ pattern is advocated by Hayashi as a good vehicle for a beginner to develop and judge skill; obviously one has to keep looking all over the surface as one stitches, to groom threads and constantly assess the visual geometry as you go. Following Chloe Patricia’s advice on her weblog and having read the hundreds of emails on the yubinuki Yahoo! Group, I’ve paid special attention to the width of each segment and to an equal number of stitches per section.  In working these two, I’ve come to a standard working method for finishing off a thread and starting with a new one. The tension at the edges is perceptibly altered through these starts and finishes – I can tell at a glance by looking at the edges of the finished temari where I have started and finished a thread. Certainly working the two-scale surface design has prepared me for the Chloe Patricia beginner’s kit.  I feel quite at home with weaving ’scales’ in this way; it brings back very fond memories of braiding very similar uroko (dragon-scale) designs. 

Da palle temari ai yubinuki: capitolo 1

Capitolo 1. Le palle temari <stile obi>

Cucire i yubinuki piccolissimi? Tanto per cominciare, ho cucito due palle temari <stile obi>. Piu’ tardi, le palle diverranno piu’ piccole, da cotone di perla #5 a #8 alle file piu’ sottili. Arrivero’ ai yubinuki, ditali giapponesi <d’arte>, cuciti da mano con la fila di seta, cironcferenza cerco di 5cm. I yubinuki sono ditali tradizionalmente portate sul dito medio, a meta – non alla punta del dito – per spingere l’ago attraverso qualche strato di tessuto.

Come la cintura dei kimono formali, le palle temari possedono spesso un obi. Quando questa cintura divienne larga, complessa e importante,  abbiamo le palle temari stile <obi>, un disegno <equatoriale> al centro della sfera. Sappiamo che la palla temari sia un tipo di bambola sferica – la palla divienne un vestito con una cintura; le palle temari divengono ogni tanto guerrieri <samurai> o imperatore/imperatrice (per le feste delle bambole in Giappone).

 

Queste due palle che ho cucito -  circonferenza, 27 cm; fila: cotone di perla #5.

Disegno: Yoko Takahara, Yubinuki to Hana-temari cho (Yubinuki e palle temari dei fiori/Yubinuki and Flower Temari). ISBN 9784837703082.  Pagine 28 e 29.

Every temari-maker eventually tackles the obi style. The “rough” edges of the obi can be confronting for some; some temari-makers go to great lengths to conceal these edges, for example with overstitching. This overstitching tends to draw attention to the obi edges and has the look of covering up something underneath. One can instead draw the eye away from these edges by an elaborate design at each of the two poles, or one can be more judicious about the colour of the background mari. Certainly going for less tonal contrast helps disguise the stitching. Ultimately though, there are two things to note: firstly, the edge stitching improves with practice and secondly, the stitching is absolutely fundamental to the tradition of ‘hand-stitched silk thimble rings’, the newest incarnation of the humble kimono embroiderer’s needle, here raised to the level of miniature embroidery ‘art’ yubinuki.

I did the yellow one without first consulting the temari literature – it was done with the obi stretching half the distance from equator to pole, with the result that it looks rather like a bizarre, plump grapefruit. The second one, left incomplete because of the unevenness in the obi width, has an obi of smaller width, just a third up from the equator to the pole. What’s critical in this size temari is the fact that it’s very difficult to tack the obi’s jiwari/division lines without affecting the stitching. Working in a “traditional” way (tensioning or pulling on each stitch) means the jiwari are bent out of shape very easily; instead with obi style temari, the stitching has to be very much lighter. No attention was paid in these temari to the number of stitches per section, there being eight sections or segments in each. What becomes critical in smaller temari or yubinuki is maintaining exactly the same number of stitches per section, which in turn is based on sections which are of identical width – as close as one can possibly make them.