Japanese Quilting

I signed up for a two day japanese quilting course at the uni. With very little knowledge of the subject I trundled along to the session....

The course cost £25 and that included all the materials and use of supplies. We were taught how to do Sashiko hand stitching, and Shibori indigo dyeing... After just two days I think I've found yet ANOTHER craft that I've fallen in love with!

At first I thought £25 was a bit expensive, however it was definitely worth the money! We were given a bound booklet, with all the details about Sashiko, it's history etc and then a step by step instruction section explaining the task set for the course, a bibliography and some patterns.



The task was to create a large Sashiko cushion (21"x21") from scratch, so not just the Sashiko needlework but the cushion itself as a whole...
All the fabric and other materials that were provided were of brilliant quality, and you also had the option to buy fancy threads and fabric as an extra if you wished. We were even able to keep the Sashiko sewing needle we used for the two days!!


The red fabric (was a fat quarter) was an extra (£2.50/$5USD) as the free fabric offered was an ugly white tartan (don't get me wrong I love tartan, but this particular pattern was rather ugly!). Unfortunately most of the best ones had already been 'reserved' when I arrived, it was a mad dash to the fabric box! :(
There were a few fab japanese fabrics too, shame...

There were three patterns to choose from, natrually I chose the most time consuming one with a detailed background pattern, doh! Didn't even think about how much work it would be compared to the others when I decided, kind of regretted it during the making process, but glad in the end as it looks effective and gave me more than enough practice of Sashiko!


Breaking from the planned cushion, I decided to do something extra to make my cushion a bit unique from the others... so I used my newly found Sashiko skills to sew two small koi fish on the back. Unfortunately there wasn't a pattern for them so I had to quickly do a rough sketch of a fish! I also made it a side opening instead of a top (so the opening was vertical instead of horizontal).



I made a few errors sewing the back too... the ties are not quite right (they're not all the same length..oops!) and I also made a measurement error for the smaller right section, not a big issue but I know its wrong so it's annoying!! Still, I suppose if I do it again I know where I went wrong!




The teacher gave me the other patterns too, I think I may give them a whirl too at some point as it was easy peasy to do and lots of fun!



Brilliant fun weekend!

Until next time
ttfn!