Sashiko Part 2 at Denman College last week

Lots of planning and designing went into the pieces made at Denman, from Monday evening to Thursday lunchtime. The idea for this course was for students to have the opportunity to design their own larger sashiko panel, which could be stitched with combinations of various hitomezashi (one stitch) sashiko stitches and outline designs, similar to the combined techniques used on panels like "Kikkou" (from "Japanese Sashiko Inspirations") and "Denman Kannon".


Several of the students have attended my other sashiko course at Denman, which I will be teaching again next month, in January and, in April, at Bridlington.

Clare and her mum Jenny had both been busy since attending the sashiko course at Denman earlier this year - click this link to see the following projects and panels in their early stages.


This time, Jenny started a panel based on an antique tsutsugaki dyed design of shou chiku bai (pine, bamboo and plum, the "three friends of Winter"), using coloured sashiko threads.


Clare began a large panel with two facing koi, based on the koi wallhanging in "Japanese Sashiko Inspirations" but adding corner designs for the four seasons. The koi scales are urokozashi (scale stitch).


Doreen has also been on one of the earlier courses. She started another koi panel but may decide to work it on a larger scale later. She also stitched some hitomezashi samples, which looks like becoming her sashiko speciality.


Margaret also opted to work on cream - pure linen. She is making a seat cushion for the conservatory chair in the photo, so decided to reflect the chair's design with radiating lines behind the kamon crests. She adapted the sparrow and bamboo crest to change the design into two swallows, complete with very realistic colouring.


It was Ruby's first time doing sashiko, although that is hard to believe as she made such nice work of the chrysanthemum outline for the centre of a table runner. It will have coordinating striped tsumugi panels at each end and additional karakusa scrolls filling in the background around the motif.


Mary designed not just one but two panels during the course. Starting with a bamboo marumon (circle pattern) design, she elongated the leaves for a more elegant effect. These designs were adapted from Chinese and Japanese embroidery designs.


To introduce (and reintroduce) everyone to sashiko stitching, everyone tried kusazashi (grass stitch), the Yuza sashiko pattern my friends taught at Harrogate - the sampler in the centre, showing the different stages of the pattern, is Chie Ikeda's work (I think). This stitch is so attractive and popular, I am planning a new sashiko day workshop to focus on it and other Yuza sashiko stitches and may suggest a new course which looks at Hitomezashi in more depth.