Color Challenge Melee

Sometimes you just need a little push to get you outside of your usual color or fiber choices. This activity will do just that.

The Set Up

Have each participating player put three or more bundles of fiber into a basket. To make the stitching easier you might want to specify that the fibers be of a compatible size such as #5 perle cotton but this is not strictly necessary. There should be enough quantity of each fiber to stitch a temari, generally a full skein. Toss or shake the fibers in the basket to be sure they are well mixed.

If you want to do this one as an individual exercise, just place a good sized number of fiber bundles into a basket. Do not be selective aobut colors, just toss in what you find in your stash.

The Selection

Take turns passing the basket amoung the participants. Each person chooses one bundle of thread without looking. Continue to pass the basket until all fibers have been chosen.

If you are going solo, just choose 4 colors after you have mixed them up. Do not look as you choose your fibers; that's cheating.

The Stitching

Each person must use all of the colors chosen to create a temari design of their choice. You provide your own mari and marking thread. Good choices here might really pull it all together.

Be open minded about your colors. Even if they don't strike you as attractive at first you can rearrange them and play with them a bit to get a feel for them. Sometimes adding a strong color for the mari or marking thread will make them pop. Sometimes you might need a judicious choice of design to gvie you the freedom to create subgroups of color. Just remember that it is really just a bit of string and have fun with it.

The Aftermath

You will be surprised at what you can create with random color choices. We tried this first at the 2008 SW Stitch In with interesting results. If you give it a try and would like to post your results here, just send me a note: temari at zymurlogic.net.


Heather's color melee from SW Stitch In 2008
Debi's color melee from SW Stitch In 2008
Peggy's color melee from SW Stitch In 2008