Temari part 4: the finished ball

Here is my finished ball.  It's not the best one I've ever done, but it's OK!

One of the reasons I chose this design is that I really need to practice my spindles.  In this picture you can see the difference between the first one I stitched, on the left, and the fourth one, on the right.  Practice does indeed make . . . better.  Still not perfect!

And here's the final shot.  I had originally intended to do the whole thing just in ecru, navy and copper metallic, but once I got the ecru parts of the long spindles done, I really felt like it was all too much of a muchness.  So I grabbed some magenta for the outer parts of the long spindles, and I'm glad I did.  I like it so much better.

This design is pretty simple, but you can get even simpler.  Remember this ball that I sent my mom?

All you'd need to do is mark off your ball with a simple 4 division (even easier than simple 8!) and then lay different colored threads to either side of each marking thread.  The one on the equator is called an "obi" - isn't that cute?  This simple design is still one of my favorites.

Here are a few more of my older temari balls, just for inspiration.  I'm just showing the ones that are so simple that they don't really need any explanation, now that you know how to mark a ball.

same as above, but with a different decoration in the negative space

spindles, but woven while stitching

a simple 16 division, wrapped

 . . .  with a very wide obi

more spindles . . .  sorry it's so fuzzy - it's 4 years old!

So, has anyone tried it out?  Liking it?  Not liking it?  I think I'm going to set it aside for a bit and get back to my knitting and sewing!