Picture this: A very small airport with only two gates (which close between flights during slow times).  A group of four women, obviously having a good
time, holding a white posterboard with the multicolored message "PICKUP FOR BUCHANAN-AN EVENING OF BALLS & BEAUTEOUS ORBS."  (webmaster's note - also picture the looks we four women got HOLDING that sign...) Welcome to Temari Spring Fling, NY 2002.

Those four beautiful women were Ginny, Martine, Susan Cameron (hereafter referred to as Susan) and Susan Hyashi (hereafter referred to as Sue).  And I was Buchanan, fresh off the plane from Nashville, TN.  Actually, fresh off the plane from Chicago, but let's not be picky.

After much hugging, and meeting Susan and Ginny in person (Martine, Sue and I were all in Birmingham together) we began the long walk to the baggage area.  It was at least 20 feet!  I did have a moment of panic when I remembered that I had borrowed a friend's suitcase and had to stretch my brain to recall what it looked like.  Especially since I had only seen it for about 15 minutes total in my life.  Do you have any idea how many people have navy suitcases
with zippers on the front, a handle and wheels?  It boggles the mind!

(I have to insert a side note here....Looking for the suitcase caused me much less panic than the realization that, after discussing with the suitcase-loaning friend the possibility that I might not be grown up enough to carry two library books with me on the trip, I had left one on the plane from Nashville to O'Hare.  I did retrieve it from the ticket counter, but only after I had hiked to my departing gate and discovered I had nothing to read while I waited.  Apparently my responsibility level was highly over rated in our conversation!  Fortunately she loaned me the suitcase BEFORE she knew that.)

After I collected myself and my things (books and all) we headed out to the parking lot (carefully avoiding the doggie presents left by the cute little puppy that rode next to me on the plane.  I'm SO thankful he waited!)  After eyeing my suitcase, stitching bag, and not so small purse, and not so small self, there was a parking lot conference on how to fit 5 women and the equivalent of a small needlework shop in the car.  We watched in amazement as Sue begin pulling bag after beautiful bag out of one of her, um, bags and tucked them into all the nooks and crannies until the big bag was deflated.  It was like a magic trick!  With that effort, and a few of us straddling luggage, we finally managed to squeeze in and head for home.

The car ride was filled with learning a bit about one another. The laughter flowed easily, and we all knew were beginning a grand adventure, temari style.

Ginny, Sue, Susan, Martine and I arrived at The Courtyard and met up with Paula, Ryan and Harriet.  After introductions and hugs (and potty breaks), we redistributed passengers and caravaned to Ginny's house.  Careful driving kept us together and after a quick stop to pick up some pizzas, we made it to Ginny's house.  The house was so welcoming!  Even some tulips decided to time their blooms with our visit.  Ginny's home is beautiful, and a perfect place for a fun crowd to gather. 

As the new arrivals arranged their belongings (Yes, Sue did manage to collect all her bags), a wonderful supper was laid out.  (Part of my arranging was trying to get Ginny's quilt out of my suitcase and into the box I had packed, without being too obvious as Ginny walked by our door.)  During dinner Puffin  was eager to make friends, especially with those of us who chose to eat on the floor (webmaster's note - that is, sitting on the floor. I really did provide plates even though they were paper).  We also began to look at one another's balls and ohh and ahhh (I can't resist at least one sentence like that!)   I think Paula had the biggest collection, next to Ginny who had home field advantage.  Paula had boxes of stunning designs, many of which she "just made up."  The favorites included bright colors and quilt type, asymmetrical designs.  Plus, an entire basket of swirls in all sizes and colors, which she assured us we would soon be able to do.

During the course of the evening, the conversation turned to how close our group was and how much we had helped one another through rough patches. While we were still in that vein of conversation, I managed to sneak Ginny's box (with a very flat bow) next to her chair when she left the room for a moment.  It took her awhile to notice it when she came back, I think someone even said, "What's that?" to get her to look.  I told her that the suspense was over and she could finally "read," in reference to her amazing self-control in not reading all the emails I sent out to get the darn thing organized.  She opened it cautiously, not having any idea what I was up to, but knowing the box was too small for a stripper.  We were all so happy to see how thrilled she was to receive this gift from the heart.  We actually managed to leave her speechless, which she claims is very uncommon!  Everyone did such a great job on their squares, and the design is laid out with room for a few more if anyone gets an inclination to fill in the blanks.  We had a wonderful time reading all the  messages and admiring the handiwork.  (I have to admit that I tried to stick to admiring Ginny, cause I was about sick of looking at the quilt after working on it all night!)  After that, we all got out our goodie bags and shared local keychains and pins, seashells, lint balls, nametags and other fun stuff.  Ginny presented us all with TemariKai keytags, pens and pencils, and Spring Fling t-shirts.  My, what a haul!

I think we played a word game that night, but since I did so poorly I blocked it from my memory.  Most of the entertainment was watching Ginny with her quilt and having Puffin love on all of us.  After setting a starting time in the morning, we said good-bye to the Courtyard crew, then the house bunch stayed up a bit later talking and saying goodnight.

I have to admit the order of events for Saturday is kind of jumbled in my memory, but I will try to cover everything, if not in order.  I know that breakfast came first, and we had bagels and cold pizza and yogurt, whatever our hearts and taste buds desired (but the spread included hot or cold cereal, coffeecake, juice, coffee.....).  Then we settled in to stitch and actually spent a lot of time during the day checking out one another's supplies and threads.  One hit of the weekend was Ryan's drawer.  At home she uses a drawer to hold her supplies when she stitches, and just pulled it out and brought it with her.  It was adorable!  Bags, boxes and tackle boxes were all laid out and perused throughout the day, and a few gifts and trades were made.

I think we started with the swirl pattern, which Paula taught.  She kept saying it was easy, and we kept not believing her until we tried it.  She is an excellent teacher and I think we all "got it."  Some highlights of that time were watching us try to pull out the unneeded marking threads that were tacked down; Paula encouraging us that the best thing to do is keep stitching, even when we were sure that something was wrong; and, I have to admit this one, seeing Sue H. work on a pattern that didn't come out ten times better than the rest of us.  (Sue got kidded a lot about how quickly she could turn out stunning designs.)  I hope Paula's instructions are up on the web soon.  I had tried doing the swirl from the page linked to, but could never seem to get it.  Having Paula explain it in a different way made all the difference. 

After that, I attempted to teach four centers, but all I really did was hand out copies of Martine's paper she used to teach it with in Birmingham.  I think I complicated things more than helped!  I was vindicated, however, when Martine and Paula liked my 4-centered dragonfly ball enough to make a model of it to use later.  (For those of you who haven't read the Birmingham review, the Dragonfly ball was the first design I worked by looking at a similar design but not using written instructions.  I did it all by myself and the temari angels sang!)

After the 4 centers time, we headed outside to take pictures of our balls (hee, hee).  Ginny had a couple of huge bowlfuls of temari of her own and some she had received on GITS.  There was so much inspiration in seeing everyone's work.  Oh, that reminds me, Paula and Ginny both had handfuls of teenies that were stunning!  If you never had an inclination to make one before, you would after seeing them in person.  There were even some as tiny as a green pea.  I think my orange toenails were the only non-temari subject of a picture.  I suppose I could have held a ball with my feet.

I recall we had a lunch table laden with fabulous cold cuts and breads, shrimp cocktail, salad and some other yummies like Benne wafers.  Puffin was definitely enjoying having a crowd around.  I think she knew she was on stage all weekend.  She showed us lots of tricks, amused us with her pod dancing, and enjoyed all the belly rubs we could dish out.  She was a consummate hostess.  Like mother, like daughter. (and according to Ginny gained four pounds over the weekend with all the goodie handouts......)

As the evening approached we took off for dinner at the local Japanese restaurant.  We were seated at a table between a young girl's birthday party, and a table with a very NY family (I actually heard the mom say , "Kids, stay auwf the lauwn.") joined by a couple trying to have a romantic dinner.  We ordered a selection of steak, chicken, veggies, noodles and rice all around and then made sure we did whatever Sue did with her food and chopsticks.  Our chef couldn't speak much English, so the show was kind of quiet.  Sue tried to speak to him a bit, but apparently he wasn't so swift in Japanese, either. About halfway through the dinner the servers decided it was time to celebrate the young girl's birthday with a song.  They started by sneaking up behind us (we sure didn't see them coming) and then began banging LOUDLY on a gong.  We all jumped out of our skins, and they began to sing a Japanese-style rendition of "Happy Birthday to You."  It was an absolute hoot, once we got our hearing back and wits about us.  They repeated the whole thing again shortly for another nearby table.  Fortunately, they didn't know any temari songs.  As I told Ginny, it will all make for a good story later!  So with full tummies and numbed ears we headed back to Ginny's stitching Haven.

After we got home we coaxed Sue into teaching us her "corkscrew" design.  It is listed on the pattern pages, and has 12 pages of instructions.  She condensed it down greatly and had us all creating stars with chevrons in no time.  The funny thing was that she ended up teaching us a "larger" version of the original design, but it worked out well and was probably easier to learn the concept that way.  The rest of the day was spent with stitching time, which is always more fun in a group. 

That evening we played "pass the present" with the gifts we brought, and did another word game that I had to block from my memory since I again stunk at it.  We also got out the goodie bag that Anne sent from England and picked through some of Vicki's hand dyed silks she had sent to sell.  It was temari heaven!  The hotel crowd headed back "home" and the rest of us stayed up talking and stitching way too late.  Swirls were popping up all over the place.  What a beautiful sight.

I volunteered for KP on Sunday morning, and got started on bacon, eggs, grits imported from Tennessee, and my specialty -- orange biscuits.  The Courtyard crew joined us, and Harriet even coaxed her wonderful husband David  into joining us.  We all had a lovely time visiting while we ate breakfast and David being a consummate story teller.... and then we had him play photographer for us and take lots of pictures.  Paula and Harriet were both headed home then, so we gleaned our last minute stitching help, passed out hugs and began the worst part of the weekend, saying good-bye.  After lunch Ginny and Susan C. took Sue H and Martine, although Ryan and I followed Sue to the door getting final instructions on the pattern she taught us.  Ryan and I passed the afternoon stitching and chatting until Susan C and Ginny got home, and then Ryan pulled out some watercolors she had painted.  They were stunning!  I accused her of holding out on us for not showing them sooner.  She is definitely a woman of many talents.  Actually, it was wonderful to find out how talented our group is.  Everyone seemed to have giftings in several areas.

Supper was raid the leftovers (of which there were plenty) ..... and then watching Iron Chef, which was a new experience for me (man what they can't do with um... everything....) We also got some samples of omega nylon, decided we all needed a table and lamp like Ginny's, and munched more leftovers and goodies.   I think we were all in a state of exhausted happiness.  We stitched until our eyes drooped and reluctantly called it a night.

Monday morning found us all, except Ginny, trying to squeeze our belongings into our suitcases.  I actually had quite a bit of room, after leaving the quilt behind.  Somehow, though it was still a stretch to get everything in--and Ginny had to retrieve one of my stray library books from under the coffee table.  I had time before we left for the airport to go to Ginny's "temari museum" and look through all the Japanese books, and temari related things.  Ryan had to find me up there to say good-bye when she started her drive home, then one of Ginny's friends came to take Susan C and I to the airport. We arrived at the airport in plenty of time, and after a tearful good-bye to Ginny, passed the time people watching.  The time finally came for me to head to the plane, and after one last good-bye I was going home. I came away amazed at how close our group is, how much we love each other, the level of talent represented and overall, thankful for the opportunity.