Playing with colors: my thread collection

There's something I find very satisfying about having a lot of colors of something. Remember the joy of the big box of crayons when you were a kid? I haven't really gotten over it. Due to my recent interest in making temari (Japanese style embroidered thread balls), I went and bought a lot of thread.

I felt like buying one of each color but restrained myself. Why so much thread? Not only can I use it to wrap the balls, I've discovered I can also use 4 strands at a time to embroider with. It's cheaper than floss and in some ways easier to use. (I often knit on #0/2mm needles, so maybe it's just that I just keep using smaller and smaller materials. If I ever start knitting with my thread, please do an intervention!) I feel I can justify buying even more colors because it's multipurpose and it doesn't take up nearly as much storage space as a stash of yarn. If we ever need to mend anything, I will be ready.
   I thought the spools looked very pretty next to one of my favorite mola pillows. I think the pillow proves how beautiful a multitude of colors in one place can be.

   I've been working on embroidering balls with local, natural themes. I really like this pattern for swirling dragonflies that I found on Temarikai.

Once the C8 ball is marked, the stitching itself is fast and easy. I also tried a simple band pattern on a C8.

Happily, I'm getting much faster at marking a C8; the first one was a confused struggle that took over 2 hours. I learned on this last ball that it really is worth all the time it takes to tack down my marking lines; these wandered a bit as I stitched. Now I know that it's worth the time and effort.