Here are highlights of the work of makers beyond Sweden or my own family.
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Made by Tim Hegman
Tim is an innovator. And a "leftie." He has to constantly twirl his yarn to keep the plies twisted in the correct direction. Tim is a talented handwork artist who quickly learned how to "singla" a ball, and then immediately took the technique two steps further. One of his innovations was to figure out how to put a jingle bell inside the ball. This "God Jul" (Swedish for "Merry Christmas") ball is about 4 inches in diameter. The core is a hollow papier mache ball, sliced open to put in the jingle bell, and then resealed before winding the wool base around it. He also added gold thread to his stitching yarns, to get a bit of sparkle! I've included both before completion and after completion, so you can see progress. Also, notice what he did with the numbers and letters; he didn't stitch into the edges. Liking the roundness of the edges and wanting to keep that, he dove his needle under the figures, and continued stitching underneath. Very cool. |
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Made by Tim Hegman Tim's third ball also had a jingle bell in it. In this one, he used the same pattern as the one I showed him made by my grandfather, only using earthy colors. |