Sashiko Party

I have this wonderful book (ISBN0-89689-186-0). but I must admit, I had no idea how wonderful it was until we sat down to use it tonight.

Mariko brought 3 kits, pre-printed pieces of cotton with 4 colors of thread. She offered me one, but I was in the mood for something different. I brought her up to the sewing room and started pulling things out. The Sashiko Sourcebook, the smaller book of Sashiko patterns in Japanese, the sewing kit I made in Atlanta, 50+ balls of pearl cotton… She said at some point, “you have everything” and I think she’s right. I do.
Anyway, after flipping through The Sourcebook, she decided to make some coasters, and I went with the slightly more ambitious project of a “sampler.” I didn’t stop to read much, just followed the pictures and the patterns. I was in a rush to get started, so was she. So we did, then we sat and sewed in comfortable crafty silence, for over 4 hours.
I learned that Sashiko is a lot harder than it looks. It’s fun and I love it. I could easily see myself doing a lot more with it, but it’s a skill. Drawing out a pattern chart, getting the spacing right, counting stitches. I’m glad I’m making a little sampler, there’s just so much to learn.

Rico and I had fun though and she said that I could persuade her to do it again. Her coasters came out really cute, especially the plum blossom one. I’m about half way through with the second block in my sampler and I think I’m too tired to do any more tonight. I grabbed a bunch of really good pics of the other placemats done by Rico’s mom’s friend, pop on over to my flickr stream if you want to check them out.