Holiday spheres

  As we are finally moving into cold weather and the holiday season, it affects my color choices and projects. I'm especially drawn to icy blues as on this 16 division chrysanthemum stitch.

 The ball shown below has the same base color in sewing threads as some of the number 5 perle cotton thread, causing new shapes to seem to appear by magic.

Blues can be kept warm with yellow.

  I made this cute Santa temari from a pattern from Barb Suess that I bought from her Etsy store.

The pattern is easy to follow and it aimed at newbies. One doesn't even need to divide the ball to make this. Even so, it had some useful techniques new to me such as the bullion stitch for the beard. The other side of the ball has snowflakes stitched on it. I had some fuzzy white thread that was perfect for that. You can see one to the right of Santa's head.
  Meanwhile, Mr. Rududu has gotten into the spherical mode with a module origami designed by Toshikazu Kawasaki. It was featured in the last issue of The Paper, the magazine of Origami USA.

Apparently it is quite challenging to get 30 modules together into a sphere without them falling apart at some point. I even heard brief mutterings about glue but I kept him under careful surveillance and know he made them the morally correct origami way: no scissors, no glue. There were a lot of tiny clothespins involved at one point. Once they are assembled, they are quite strong although picking them up from the top is discouraged. (I think I almost gave Mr. Rududu heart failure when I did that. The ball survived, fortunately.) I think they look really festive perched on some old wine glasses, some of whom belonged to my grandmother.
  The nitty-gritty: The first three temari in this post are from patterns in Japanese Temari; A Colorful Spin on an Ancient Craft by Barbara B. Suess.

A parade that is its own audience

A few years ago we discovered that there is an annual Halloween parade in front of our house. How we lived here for over twenty years before finding out about a annual parade with hundreds people in it is sort of mysterious.

Also mysterious is who organizes the parade and where they go afterwards. Here's what we know: there are a few signs around the neighborhood announcing when it will happen. It has nothing to do with trick or treating. They walk the length of the park we live on and then they go somewhere else. We don't know where.
   There is virtually no gathering of an audience. How can we gather if there is no publicity? I guess that's not the point: it's for the fun of getting dressed up and walking in a big group. Somewhere. Some year I will find out when it is, get in costume, and walk along to see what happens. There are a lot of very small children with parents but there are some unaccompanied adults as well.
   Again this year we happened to see the parade just by accident. I liked the accordianistas that had a Day of the Dead vibe going. (For the most part, the parade is very quiet.)

 Here's a family of bees attended by their bee keeper. I'm not sure why he has maracas.

Give away/holiday colors

To help me get in the holiday mood, I'm doing a modest give away. Details are at the end of this post. When it's cold and white outside, it makes me appreciate bright colors, even the classic red and green. This is my treasured Christmas stocking that my mom's cousin knit for me over a half century ago. My favorite gifts were the silly little things my mom put into this and the orange in the toe that tasted better than all other oranges.

Flowers in winter are so welcome.

My holiday decorating is quite simple; it takes about 10 minutes. One thing I do is put these temari ornaments out in a bowl. They're a traditional Japanese craft that I wish I knew how to do.

Give away details: Leave a comment by midnight December 15 and I will randomly select someone to get our limited edition handmade holiday card. Its photo features Mr. Rududu's origami in a small still life. It's a very secular image and I hope, quite cheering. I'm willing to mail it anywhere in the world. Please don't be shy! (And make sure you let me know how I can get in touch with you if you are selected.)