My Most Interesting Handmade Christmas Bauble

The most interesting handmade Christmas ornament I have ever made was introduced to me at a mothers group. A lady came to show us how to take some timeout for ourselves, our babies were all less than 2 years old. She thought we were more likely to take some time if we had something constructive to work towards and she had a craft to show us. She was going to show us how to make temari balls. This is an ancient Japanese folk art. The Japanese used to use the silk from old kimonos to make silk embroidered thread balls. The balls were originally made for children as playthings. We were to make some as Christmas decorations. Temari balls have a long and varied history if you are interested.Although many different material were and are used for the core we were going to be using felted wool, wrapped with wool, sewing thread and decorated with embroidery thread in a traditional pattern. It doesn't sound like much, but it is my favorite decoration for the tree.

The hardest part of the process is felting the wool, and luckily she had done that for us. I have since discovered that many people use Styrofoam balls instead.The first thing we had to do was to make the wool into a ball. The next step is to choose an yarn of a color that you like and wrap it many many times randomly all around the ball until it is completely covered. Then choosing a plain thread of any colour we wrap that around the ball many times in a similar way.

Once you have used about a reel of thread around the ball you are ready to start you embroidery design. There are many different designs some use ribbon, but traditional they would have used silk, we used embroidery thread. The first thing to do is to divide the ball into sections- you do this using pins. Thinking of the ball as the globe, mark the poles, and equator, using your thread and along needle, wrap the thread around the equator a number of times. the rest of sewing is following a design similar to the one shown in the video.

To make these for Christmas ornaments you would need to go with seasonal colors or colors from your theme with Christmas designs on them like the snowflake above. I have added a thread to mine to hang it on the tree at Christmas, but you can use this style of craft for any occasion you choose, they can be displayed in a bowl or near a candle for effect. But mostly we make them because we enjoy making new crafts.