Loch Lomond Sashiko - first session after New Year

Bad weather (snow) postponed our December workshop, but we met yesterday at The Studio for our fourth session.  It was even sunny for part of the day and Isabel had got the workshop warmed up by the time we arrived, so we had a comfortable stitching session.  The gales didn't arrive until late last night, so I expect everyone was tucked up at home by then.

We have some excellent selections of sashiko coming along for our samplers this year.  Maureen's is very colourful, taking her colourscheme inspirations from Japanese striped tsumugi cottons which will be part of the finished sampler.

Francine has accented her stitch samples with subtle hints of shaded blue and white thread.

Take away the coloured accents and I'm sorry but I can't remember which set of white stitched sashiko samples belongs to which group member - they are all stitched so beautifully and to a high standard.  I think the first set might be Susan's, but I'm not sure!

 

See what I mean?  Like last year, everyone is edging their samples with a different coloured thread in an overlock or zigzag stitch, otherwise very quickly we couldn't tell them apart.

The fan design (above) is a little extra I thought up during the drive over.  Usually I do these easy fans as part of my Sashiko for Summer and Sashiko Furoshiki workshops - they are inspired by the corner fans traditionally seen on furoshiki wrapping cloths, where they are used for reinforcement.  I wanted us to be able to include them in our samplers, but stick with the 9in block format while having the fan on point, so the orientation doesn't lead the eye towards a corner of the sampler.  I worked out that we needed 6 3/8in cut squares for this and we will be adding triangles to fill in the corners, with two 7 1/8in squares halved diagonally (or 71/4in squares, to be on the generous side, and then the block trimmed to 9in).  The corner triangles can be a contrasting fabric and I was thinking about using a reproduction Japanese print for mine. The finished size of these larger blocks, once the sashing is added, is 8 1/2in.  We're working with these square sizes because they are the most economical size to cut from the traditional narrow width cotton, as used by my friends in Yuza Sashiko Guild.

Oops, I forgot to photograph my blocks!  This year, I'm trying to keep up with everyone else.