About TemariKai.com

        TemariKai.com is actually a most serendipitous accident. When I first came upon temari, I was immediately enthralled by it, but in 1998 there was virtually no information available here in the West. Diana Vandervoort had published her first two books; there were one or two sites online that had some impressive photos but little other information, and certainly no instruction. I summed up what I could and posted a few pages on my personal web account. The rest, as they say, is history.

        Within 24 hours I had people getting in touch; within a month we were running a small mailing list (that now numbers over 700 members worldwide, being hosted on Yahoo Groups) out of my personal address book; I was adding more web pages based on the mailing list discussions. Within 18 months I was rapidly running out of server space on my internet access account, and in 2000 Temarikai.com was released.

        A few more English books were written or found; the discussion group was doing rather well in figuring things out (including from the then-some 28 Japanese books that we'd been introduced to), and Temarikai.com kept growing with compiled information from TalkTemari along with contributed pattern interpretations from web readers. It was still very much an informal thing. In 2005, I was introduced online to a JTA Kyoujyu-level temari crafter in Japan, and from there the doors began to open to us.

        Finally, there were real answers to real questions, rather than the improvising-as-we-go mode that had been the only recourse. Traditional and authentic skills took over in the places we'd been off track or were just plain locked out of due to the language barrier. Membership and certification in the Japan Temari Association became possible.

        The site underwent a fairly major revision about this time, but was still growing faster than ever thought possible. Another spruce up was done in 2008, but again the quantity of information by now was way out of pace of the original site organization. Additionally, these edits were in content but not infrastructure, so the code behind the scenes was sinking, fast.

        Temarikai.com 2014 is a complete and comprehensive re-build from the ground up: new HTML/CSS code, and the accumulated 2054 pages of the old version content sorted, archived if needed, or otherwise edited to reflect the 16 years of learning. Many new pages have been added, as I've been guided through Kyoujyu certification in the JTA and am able to share what has been learned. It is accessible on most, if not all, mobile devices as well as standard computers. Instructional pages have been coded so that they are printer-friendly (right click and print) without having to maintain separate PDF files. The file structure has been redesigned to be maintainable well into the future.

        The site is not a cut-and-dried, pre-planned, online "how-to book"; it's a dynamic compendium of personal authoring, learning, research, as well as compiled information from TalkTemari posts, contributed information, and patterns. Many pages first appeared as lists of hints and helps, which are now compiled and edited pages. With the increasing popularity of Temari as a needle art, many people are coming to Temarikai.com as their primary reference. I hope that you will find it helpful, but I strongly recommended that newcomers/beginners still invest in a book or two, and allow TemariKai.com and Talk Temari to be your adjunct help and support. To all those that have brought us to where we are today, I offer my deep appreciation. It is indeed a community effort.

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