Temari Pattern GT09 on TemariKai.com

Temari Pattern GT09 / TemariKai Simple Division Patterns

Intermediate design. Interpretation from Hana Temari Nyumon / Flower Temari Beginner's Course ISBN4-8377-0395-X, by TalkTemari members. Originally posted 2006, compiled by Ginny T.

Materials: 36cm circumference mari with white thread wrap. Pearl Cotton #5 in red, white and green (or black) Metallic thread in gold. Plan on a large consumption of thread.

This is a traditional design in temari, known as Tsuru (crane). Various interpretations of Tsuru are very common motifs in Japanese art. If you are puzzled about why this pattern is called "Crane", don't feel bad, a lot of us were. One needs to be familiar with the appearance of the crane - this photo is from the 2006 March-April issue of National Wildlife Magazine. The temari, when worked in red, black and white as is more traditional, imitates the intersection of colors (white, red and black) on the head, neck and bill of particularly the males. Some species exhibit this more than others, but the image is visible on most all of them. For more info and photos, you can visit http://whoopers.usgs.gov/

Prepare a Simple 4 division. Place keeper pins at each marking line that intersects the equator, so you should have 4 sets of keeper pins.

1. Work a wrapped obi (maki kagari), about 2cm wide.

2. The wrapped bands are about .7 cm wide on a 36 cm mari. If you want to do a different size mari you can do it with fewer bands or you can calculate a new bandwidth but doing circumference divided by 4 and then by 12 for a good approximation. (On a 3 inch ball I did 5 wraps, on a 4 inch 7 wraps for each band)

3. There are 4 sets of keeper pins (labeled A, B, C and D) A and C are opposite, B and D are opposite.

4. The black band is wrapped first through pins A and C and goes just above the obi. Then go to the second set of keeper pins and do the first white band, then back to black, alternating back and forth. There are 5 bands of black on each side of the pole points and 5 bands of white.

5. Follow the picture of the temari for changing colours. White goes above the black, a bright/third colour goes above the white.

Tension is important, if you wrap too tight the threads will move towards the poles, too loose and they don't look neat and tidy.

The photo to left shows the first 2 colors being wrapped (black substituted for green).