It seems over the last
two to three years we have established a few tradtitions through
TalkTemari - a southern stitching retreat in the fall and a northern
Stitchin in the spring. 2003 was no exception with Sue C of Atlanta
stepping up to the plate to organize the gathering (the first weekend
in November). Sue arranged with The Fairfield Inn/Marriot in the
Dunwoody/Perimeter
Mall section of northern Atlanta so that with the rental of rooms their
Breakfast Room could be used by the group during the day after 10am so
there was a perfect gathering area (not to mention a little carousing
in the rooms too!!). Blair and a new-to-temari-buddy Carolyn from
Alabama, Sue H from Michigan, Peg L and Eric C from Kentucky, Barb from
North Carolina, and Nicole from Tennessee descended upon Sue and
Georgia. Herewith are collected thoughts and photos of the
time....looks like another riproaring success.
From Blair we have the rundown -
We are an amazing group. To think
that a craft such as ours pulls so many of us from different walks of
life together to share, learn, become friends, and for some - closer
friends. And so it was again recently when we gathered in Atlanta.
Alabama, Michigan, Kentucky, North Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee
were represented - a total of 8 (not counting the gecko that caught a
ride up from lower Alabama in Blair's sewing basket). Some of us had
met before while others were experiencing their first time to actually
put faces with names. Gosh, the Internet can be a wonderful thing!
Susan C., the organizer of it all, had arranged rooms for us at a
comfortable hotel, the center of it all. Friday night found most of us
gathered in Sue H. and Susan C.'s room dumping balls everywhere we
could, perusing books (Barb brought a library), and just talking (when
we weren't feasting on Kentucky Bourbon fudge - good stuff! and other
snack goodies). Later in the evening, some went to dinner and some went
to bed. Not being part of the dinner group, I can only share what I
heard. Those gallant adventurers found a Chinese (or Japanese?)
restaurant ready to close (chairs were up and everything) and got the
proprieters to cook them up a meal that they were able to bring back to
the hotel.
Saturday morning, Barb became our
chauffeur and Sue H. our navigator while everyone else nestled in the
back two rows. Everyone had their tassels on thanks to Nicole (ok, quit
thinking that! They were nametags made out of beads, thread, and
finished off with a lovely tassel). (Webmaster's
note - Tassels have a long and interesting history with this crew).
Our first stop was to be the local thread store. The owner got delayed
in getting there early for us (but we did get a group picture on the
front steps) so off we were again to The Container Store. Wonderful,
wonderful place! We all spent time in the check out line with items
that we never knew we needed until coming in that store. For me, my
personal favorite thing I bought was the air tight dog food container
that I am now using for my rice hulls. You should have seen us figuring
out how to pack Barb's van with the items the 7 of us bought. Close
quarters for sure. Next stop was back to the thread store where the
invasion began. This store had specialty threads, Anchor, Perle Cotton,
metallics, even a grab bag of threads that definitely paid off for the
ones who picked that up. The owner casually mentioned she had more
metallics in the back if we were interested but they were discontinued
lines and 15 cents a spool. Nicole goes, "Uh, yeah!!" It was like
a pinata burst. The bag was dumped onto a table and we all converged.
When we finally made our way out of the store, I sensed sighs of
satisfaction as our thread habits had been sated for the moment. (webmaster's note - as any temari stitcher
knows you can never have enough threads, and ye who dies with the most
threads wins).
Back to the hotel we went.
We overtook the breakfast room as we brought all of our stuff down on a
hotel luggage rack. Lunch was brought in by Sue C., her sister, and her
mother. (webmaster's note -
unfortunately Sue C was hit with some moderately severe health problems
as the weekend approached and did a heroic job of continuing to
organize and pull this thing off - she was able to be there on and off
during the weekend to enjoy some of the festivities but not as
orignally planned and hoped. Thanks to her planning and the returning
players everything went off without a hitch. And yes, Sue is doing much
better thank you!). They were so fun to watch as they
absorbed the Temari magic. That afternoon, Barb taught us the easy way
to do a swirl with a 4 division. Sue H. mentored many of us as she
cracked codes and cheered us through new patterns from the Japanese
books. Eric and Nicole played with threads. Peg, Carolyn, and I
just sewed to our hearts content. It truly was a wonderful day.
Dinner that night was at a place
called Sweet Tomatoes, a cafeteria style restaurant that offered a bit
of everything. Good eatings! When we got back to the hotel, Barb had
brough a 50 pound bag of rice hulls and allowed us all to purchase
whatever amount we wanted from her. With what I had at home, I
purchased enough to fill my new "air tight dogfood container now rice
hull container" to the brim. We later converged again in Sue H. and
Susan C.'s room to share our work and our resources. We even had a
chance to enjoy donated vendor door prizes (Thanks to Kiyoko and her
manager at Sophia
Books in Vancouver BC Canada, our favorite source for Japanese
Temari books - Eric is a very happy camper to be able to expand his
library; and also to Tracy at SewThankful) distributed after
playing
some Temari trivia games.The day seemed complete. The next morning, we
met early enough to have breakfast and to see Sue H. off to get her
train to the airport. The conversation flowed easily as we shared more
about Temari and our own lives. Slowly, each one of us made our way out
the front door as we began our travels home. The 3rd annual Southern
Temari Gathering was a success. We all are looking forward to meeting
again next year. Details to come later. My one regret was that Sue C.
could not be with us very much. I know she worked hard to get us
together yet became ill and did not have the stamina to be there 24/7.
Sue C. will always hold a special place for me as she was my first
Temari-ite I met straight off the Internet. She is a gracious, super
person. I am glad she is on the road to recovery. Thank you Sue C. for
everything. To the rest of you that got to be a part of this, I enjoyed
seeing you all again and meeting some of you for the first time. You
are all an inspiration to me. - Blair
H, Fairhope Alabama
From Sue H - Now that we
have had several gatherings, north and
south on the east coast, a number of us have gotten to "really" know
each other. Nicole is noted for her orange toe-nail polish and her love
of tassels. Nicole is also a master at thread organization and
collection. I fear, by the next gathering, she will need a trailer to
haul her stash. As was stated before, Peg is an active member of the
"Red Hat" society - so mixing reds and purples sort of goes with the
territory. Blair is still running around with bags of beach sand from
the first gathering, and Barb came equipped with a 50 pound bag of rice
hulls... does that make them the Bag Ladies? Their combined talents
kept us all on our toes. Eric is always being challenged by us by
being one of the rare male species who is active in temari ... so while
the rest of us played with our "balls", Eric played with his "beauteous
orbs". (see ancient
talktemari
history for details on that one) Eric is also a master at using
unusual threads - velvets, tweeds - and all to stunning results.
Carolyn kept a low profile this time 'round, and was frequently heard
muttering "What have I gotten myself into" or "no, I'm not one of
THEM"...(webmaster's note: Carolyn
and Peg were the two "freshmen" in the bunch with it being their first
gathering) Susan C. has managed to bat a thousand by not being
able to attend her own gathering. History has it that every time she
has attempted to host one of our gatherings, something major comes up,
and she is forced to cancel out. This time, I do admit, she went a bit
too far in her attempts to avoid us by becoming rather seriously ill -
OK, Auntie Susie, enough of that! - Sue H, Kalamazoo, Michigan
From Eric - Yes, this
discussion group seems to easily spawn grand
friendships. Soon after Susan announced when and where the 2003
Temari-Southern Style gathering was going to be, Peg moved back to
Kentucky from California. I wrote to her and asked if she would
be interested in riding down to
Atlanta with me. She kindly agreed. A couple of weeks
before our trip I was going to be visiting friends outside of
Louisville and asked her if she would like to meet me first before
actually getting in a car with a perfect stranger - and for all she
knew, a skilled ax murderer - and driving for 6 hours. She said
the thought had not crossed her mind believing that the refined art and
craft of temari would not attract ax murders. Even with that
being the case we still decided that any time spent amongst temari
enthusiasts is time well spent and so arrangements were made and we
spent a lovely couple of hours in a local coffee house enjoying
effortless conversation. Soon it was Friday the 7th and Peg got up
early to drive the 2 hours to get to my house. When she arrived
at my house my father came out to meet Peg and determine that she had
"honorable intensions" toward his son. (What father would knowing
allow his son to jump into a car with one of those flashy, big-city
gals without better assessing the situation?) She passed this
interrogation with great humor and some
terrific, snappy answers. Soon we were loading up my car.
The beauty of traveling by car is that there is no anguish over what to
bring with you and what to leave behind. You just bring it
all. And we did. (Webmaster's note - believe me they did.
All of them. From Barb's van to you name it - more stuff made its
appearance at this gathering than any other I think - only one person
needed to fly to this one so there were a lot of "available" vehicles
with space.) Between the two of us we filled the trunk and the entire
back seat with luggage and threads and books and temari to share and
temari to work on and snacks and CD's to listen to. What would we
have done if we had passed a hitchhiker on the side of the road,
winding a temari and holding a sign saying "Atlanta or Bust"? I
guess we would have had to strap them to the bumper. - Eric, Berea Kentucky
From Barb - Once again I
was incredibly inspired by
everyone. Thank you all so much for traveling to Atlanta to come
and share temari. These meetings are absolutely the best way to
pick up all those little tricks that make temari easy. Although,
I must confess, I did more “untemari” than temari over the
weekend! I was stuck in the backstitch mode! I was trying
new things and it took me a while to get them figured out. It was
a time to challenge myself, and, as always, I learned from it.
Maybe next time, I can stump Sue H! After seeing her excitedly
figure out the C10 problem design that Nicole presented, maybe I
won’t! - Barb, Raleigh
North Carolina
On
to
the photos. These are presented
as they were forwarded to me - just enjoy.