ITAD ... very belated... prize draw

Goodness me where have the days since ITAD 2011 gone? A month has already whizzed past! Every time I've sat down to post to this blog something else has drawn my attention and wrestled me away from my computer.

I am very sorry that I am so late posting about the winner of this competition. There were several people that made comments or sent messages that asked not to be included in the draw, but for those that wanted to be included in the draw and had submitted their entries by November 11th, I gathered all the entries into the 'hat' to be drawn on the morning of November 12th. Unfortunately on that day my dog died and I was more than a little distracted from all things temari and (even to my own surprise) very weepy too. Then I got asked to participate in a Japanese festival at the last minute which was wonderful and really helped to get me motivated again. We are doing better now that my remaining dog is getting on with life again too (he spent about a week in his bed pining for his brother).

Here is the post I had started writing before real life got in the way.

There were several people that made comments or sent messages who asked not to be included in this draw, I guess you are all lucky enough to have your own set of Cosmo 1-7 already... but thank you for still participating in the ITAD competition even if you didn't want to win a prize.
So here we are now it is time to announce the winner....
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It's Shirley
Congratulations!!!
I will email you so you can choose which volume you'd like and we can organise get you your prize.

ITAD in Kyoto

Barb Suess sent me this email earlier in the week.

Our group of three intrepid travellers (Glenna, Kathy and me from the US to Japan) spent the day traveling with our JTA sponsor from Kyoto to Uji by train. Then we ate lunch (Japanese, of course) and took a taxi to Sensei Itoh’s home. Her classroom is in her home – a room with seating for about 10 and the walls lined with shelves filled with temari. The day was the first of our temari classes in Japan and it was absolutely wonderful! I mentioned that ITAD was on this day and there were nods of appreciation. I’m not sure our JTA sponsor or Itoh Sensei knew exactly what I meant. But it gave us all a moment to reflect that temari has spread all over the world. Sensei worked with us on a rather difficult pattern and we got it!

Wow what lucky ladies... to spend ITAD in Japan with two Temari Sensei taking a private class.

Temari class with Sensei Itoh

Barb Suess sent this great pic of herself with Kathy (left), Glenna (right) and Sensei Itoh in Japan during their recent holiday. I bet they were jumping out of their skins at such a wonderful opportunity to stitch temari at a class in Japan.

Click the image to see it a little larger and admire all the temari in the shelves.

Thanks for sharing Barb!

How international was ITAD this year?

I keep visitor statistics on this blog because I want to know how far the message about International Temari Appreciation Day is travelling around the world.

I would have expected it to spread through the English speaking parts of the world (particularly through Australia, England and USA) but I was surprised to see the list of countries names in the statistics this year.

Have a look for yourself.

I see there is a huge amount of traffic that falls into the 'Unknown Country'* category, so who knows there could be many more countries than those already listed ( a few more at least). 

If you are interested you can compare the visits this year with the previous year here.

* This category is for computers whose IP address is kept behind firewalls etc so the location cannot be determined.

Still time win a copy of a Cosmo Temari Book

There is still time to enter our 2011 ITAD competition to win a copy of a Japanese temari book in the Cosmo series.

Click here to see the competition details

Please do take 5 minutes to enter this competition. I am sure we can all speak volumes of why we love or how we got involved in Temari making. Your entry need not be an epic War and Peace type novel. Just a few lines is all you need, a picture would be nice but also not essential.

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