With the quilt layered and tacked, I'm adding extra hand quilting to the centre panel and areas where the design spills out over the borders, before stitching several hitomezashi patterns across the top and bottom (currently plain) sections of the borders. The camera flash has made the quilt look flatter than it is. The wadding is Hobbs Polydown, in black, so it is giving quite a lot of extra depth but it won't beard through. The hand quilting is close to the sashiko lines, so it is practically invisible, and there is just enough to hold the layers together - this could only work for a wallhanging - a bed quilt would need more quilting! While it has been interesting to see the quilt take on a more three dimensional look, the "invisible" quilting hasn't been very interesting to do, because the stitches are pretty much invisible close up and the effect of the high-loft wadding only really appears when the quilt is hung up.
The use of hitomezashi (one stitch sashiko) patterns in the border is a favourite finishing technique used by my friend Reiko Domon to add extra sashiko accents to her sashiko & patchwork quilts.
I plan to try a transition effect, with one sashiko pattern merging into another. This is possible in a reasonably subtle way, because several komezashi (rice stitch) variations share the same foundation stitches as a number of other patterns, including kakinohanazashi (persimmon flower stitch). I tried a similar effect with a cushion for Euro Japan Links Limited, but with the patterns divided into diagonal bands. There is a photo of it in the Inspiration Gallery in "Japanese Sashiko Inspirations" too. The shaded thread used for this cushion (shading from white to brown) gives the stitch patterns a feeling of transparency.
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