Paula is a Talk Temari member who is also a regular attendee of the NY Temari spring gatherings. She is a third generation temari maker so brings and shares many wonderful ideas and how to's with her. This pattern was a hit at the 2003 Temari NY Stitch In, and is interpreted from the Japanese book ISBN4-8377-0391-7, pg. 20. It can be worked on many sizes of mari, and with or without contrast accent lines.

        All variations are based on the same stitching diagram and it uses a C8 division.

You will use three colors for the pinwheel plus one more for the background of the design. The pinwheel design forms off of the squares shown on the diagram. There will be six - one on each face of the mari. The triangles in the diagram form the background - and if you are going to use the outline accents on the finished ball then it helps if the thread wrap of the mari is the same color as the background of the pattern but it's not essential. Stitch the first row on the squares as shown in the diagram. There will be 6; 2 of each color making sure that the same color squares are on opposite sides of the ball. Stitch a row of triangles using the background color for the pattern. All triangles should be the same color. Each triangle point should cross to within the squares previously stitched, and generously so (about 1/4 inch on a 2 1/2 inch mari). Repeat this stitching sequence - working a row on each of the squares and a row on each of the triangles until the ball is covered, leaving a little room for the outline row if you are going to use it. To outline, use 1 row of black (or contrast color) in the centers of the triangles, and/or the center of the pinwheels. The pinwheel pattern itself can be varied by using different color threads, creating "stripes" in the squares as you stitch as seen in the black temari above (that was stitched using YLI Candlelight for the squares)