Sashiko and the Knit and Stitch Show at the Rheged Centre

It has been a while since I managed to add any photos of student sashiko work, so here is Joyce Petrie's lovely sampler from the final sashiko course at Edinburgh.  It is going to be shown in her group's exhibition in May (more details coming soon) and also at the Sashiko in Stockton exhibition at All Saints' Church, Hartburn, Stockton-on-Tees, on Saturday 20th July (more info on my website events page).  Here's the poster for the Busy Bees exhibition -



This version of my koi carp was stitched by Marian Nichols.  I'm revisiting this design at the moment, and working on a new version...

 

This little boro inspired landscape was my workshop at the Spring Quilt Festivals at Newark and Harrogate, and I am teaching it again this weekend at the Knit and Stitch Show at the Rheged Centre, Penrith.  Sorry, it is already sold out! I think I will have to do it as an online tutorial sometime. I'm also giving a free talk there on Saturday, 'Japanese Sashiko - working together'.

I was on Sewing Quarter TV again last Sunday, with two one hour sashiko lessons (2nd and 4th hour of the show), focusing on using the sashiko panels I created for Olympus.

We've been at several shows this year, including the Spring Quilt Festivals and World Textile Days, and the boro side of things is getting more and more popular! So we are taking recycled vintage Japanese fabrics for sale too. These bags were made in my boro bag workshops in 2018.

My 2018 - 2019 sashiko couse at Stockton is now finished, and my students have some amazing collections of blocks to put together in their samplers. The dates for my 2019 -2020 Stockton course are now on my website (events page) along with the two sashiko summer schools I'll be teaching too.  Please contact me via the website if you are interested in booking.

New sashiko courses starting soon!

The next sashiko course in Stockton-on-Tees starts on Saturday 15th September, and the one in Edinburgh (now running as four Saturday and Sunday weekends) starts on 22nd September.  There's all the info links you need on my homepage www.susanbriscoe.com

The photo above shows some of the quilts made by my students from Edinburgh - Lorraine, Sam, Jo and Pamela (Fiona's is just out of shot on the right) when they were exhibited with Yuza Sashiko Guild's work at their exhibition in Yamagata city in May. This is the second time student samplers have gone to Japan.  As well as this exhibition, student quilts have been shown as part of the World Shibori Symposium in Yamagata and at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, so it is a chance to get your sashiko seen internationally.

I've been very busy over the last month, with Yuza Sashiko Guild members visiting the UK for the Great Northern Quilt Show and World Textile Day East.  I have photos and will post them as soon as possible, but I have so much to do this week, with the new classes starting and a book deadline coming up as well...

If you would like to join us for either class, I have a few places left for each one - contact details are on my website.

UPDATE - I have had to cancel the Edinburgh dates, as I had a couple of student cancellations, which means that the room rental would not be covered.  However, I am looking at running a 'reunion' session for former sashiko students (from any of my courses - Edinburgh, Perth, Kaleidoscope or Loch Lomond) at Edinburgh Patchwork instead, but I would need to know how many are likely to attend asap. This would be an informal session, with one to one help with any current sashiko projects you have, and I'd probably add a new pattern design for the group. It could be on 23rd September, 24th November or 1st December - all Saturdays - but I would need to know likely numbers (and take payment for the day) asap.

Next season's sashiko courses

I will be announcing the dates for the next Edinburgh sashiko course very soon.  My next course will run from the autumn and will be four full weekend sessions of Saturday and Sunday, not individual Saturdays, so if you need to travel from a bit further afield and stay over in Edinburgh, the logistics will work.  Edinburgh Patchwork, where I teach the course, is on Bellevue Street, and there are lots of guesthouses, hotels and apartments nearby (try looking on www.booking.com or www.travelodge.co.uk).  It is a 20 minute walk from Edinburgh Waverley Station or 14 minutes on the no.8 bus (get off at Mansfield Place).  There is on street free parking on weekends too.  If you are coming up to Edinburgh from further afield in the UK, it is 47 minutes by tram to York Place plus a short walk to the shop. Cost will be £80 per weekend (£40 per day).

Oreo is showing off the blocks made by her human Fiona Fitheridge on my second Edinburgh course.

Stockton dates are Saturdays, 10.30 - 4p.m. at All Saint's Church, Hartburn, Stockton-on-Tees, over 8 sessions - dates are 22nd September 2018, 27th October, 17th November, 8th December, 12th January 2019, 9th February 2019, 9th March and 27th April.  Cost will be £40 per session, payable one session in advance (first session payment is your deposit).  Please contact me if you are interested in joining us.

Snow, and sashiko class cancellations

We've had quite a lot of snow in Kettins.  The snow plough and gritter came quite close to the house yesterday, but not until 3p.m.

I'm glad we came straight home after the quilt show at Harrogate last Sunday, as I'd have been stranded in Stockton otherwise.

I had to cancel the sashiko class in Stockton for last Tuesday.  The replacement date will be Tuesday 19th June.

I've also had to cancel the Edinburgh class for Saturday.  The replacement date for that will be Saturday 19th May.

At least snowy weather is good for stitching!

My friend Katie over at Japan Crafts couldn't get to the Spring Quilt Festival at Duxford as planned this weekend due to snow around her village in North Yorkshire.  However, she's doing a 'free postage' event for everything on her website until Sunday night, so it's a good time to stock up on supplies!

Sashiko in Stockton 2018 - 2019

Here are the dates and info for the next sashiko course in Stockton-on-Tees.  I've added them as jpg files so you can easily copy the image and print it off if needed.

The photo above shows a detail from Pamela Lyall's sampler from my first Edinburgh Patchwork course.  I'll be running the course again there, but we haven't fixed dates just yet.  However, next time, the Edinburgh course will be three long weekends, so for people further afield, you'll be able to have a weekend break in Edinburgh if you want to do the course.

Sashiko from Scotland - planning the Perth samplers

As a follow up to my last post showing Sue's finished sashiko sampler, here are some photos from the last class at Perth, when we started playing around with different arrangements for the blocks.

It is difficult to work out what is going where until you start laying all the blocks out together.  Sometimes there's more than one possibility that would work - here, the kamon crests look good going down the centre, but also stepped across the sampler.

I know which sampler is Sue's because she stitched on brown and added the koi panel on cream, and I know the one below is Heather's, because she used pink in her stitching, but I don't know who did which set in the blue photos above!  Can someone remind me which set is which?  This is a reason why we all need ID labels aka differently coloured edge stitching on all our blocks, otherwise all the sashiko looks so similar!

My next course at Perth starts on Thursday 8th March.  Bookings can be made directly via The Peacock and the Tortoise - http://www.thepeacockandthetortoise.co.uk/

Sashiko from Scotland - Sue's Sampler

Sue Commander, one of the students on my first sashiko course at The Peacock and the Tortoise at Perth, posted a photo of her sampler on Facebook today.  We only finished the course two weeks ago (just!) so she's been really busy putting it all together.  It looks great on the brown and she has coordinated her thread colours beautifully too, including using a very bright yellow/orange/red thread from Olympus as a colour accent.  Well done!

My next course at The Peacock and the Tortoise starts on Thursday 8th March - for details, click here.

Forthcoming sashiko course dates - Perth & Stockton

Yesterday was the penultimate session of my first sashiko course at The Peacock and the Tortoise in Perth.  The next course starts on March 8th and all the dates and booking info is now on their  website.

I have also arranged the dates for the next course at Stockton-on-Tees, which will run on Saturdays for eight sessions.  These will be slightly longer days than the current course, which I split into 10 classes, partly to avoid the weekday rush hours but also because we needed to fit in around other users for the church.  Next seasons dates are - 22nd September 2018, 27th October, 17th November, 8th December, 12th January 2019, 9th February, 9th March, and 8th April.  Fees will be £40 per day - first payment secures your place.

The sampler in the photo above is by Fiona Fitheridge, from the second Edinburgh sashiko course.  It's a lot further on now, but this is the most recent photo I have of it.  Looking forward to seeing it finished now.

Fiona's sashiko sampler

Fiona Fitheridge posted a photo of the progress on her sashiko sampler on Facebook today.  She's putting the borders on at the moment.  The subtle touches of colour in the stitching are matched in the border stripe and it's looking great.

The Peacock and the Tortoise have announced dates for my next sashiko course there and it begins on Thursday 8th March.  The current course group there finish in February and, as our classes are mostly fortnightly they are now slightly ahead of the Stockton-on-Tees and Edinburgh group, so they are keeping me on my toes!

For next year's Stockton course, I'm looking at Saturdays rather than Tuesdays, as I had quite a few people this year who would have liked to come but couldn't due to work or other commitments during the week.  I haven't finalised dates yet, as these will need to work around next year's quilt show dates, but hope to have them ready soon.

Sashiko at the concert hall cafe

This is the start of the third session of the sashiko sampler course in Perth.  When I arrived at The Peacock and the Tortoise yesterday morning, the electrics had tripped out, so while Trudy got the electrician in to fix them and check all was OK, we nipped round the corner to the concert hall foyer cafe and did an hour there!  Sashiko is so portable. We had an early lunch, as the lights were on again by noon.  It turned out that the lamp had failed in one of the spotlights in the window.

If we hadn't been there, I'd have forgotten that last night's concert was the St Petersburg Symphony Orchestra performing Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet overture and Symphony No 6 ('Pathetique'), plus Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No.4, so I got tickets. It was brilliant!

Sashiko courses - Perth and Edinburgh

My 8 session sashiko course at the Peacock and the Tortoise in Perth starts tomorrow, and I think we only have a few places left.  Same with the Edinburgh course which starts on Saturday 7th October.  Click here for course info and dates.  The course in Stockton got off to a great start earlier in the month and our next meeting will be Tuesday 10th October, but that course is now full.  Exciting times for new sashiko stitching!

Forthcoming sashiko courses and a December day workshop

The dates for my new sashiko courses are arranged now, with the courses running from October in Edinburgh and from September in Stockton-on-Tees and Perth.  The Edinburgh and Perth courses are 8 sessions, while the Stockton one runs over 10, as we have shorter days.

Edinburgh dates (all Saturdays), 10.30 a.m. to 4p.m. - at Edinburgh Patchwork - 7th October, 21st October, 25th November, 9th December, 3rd February, 3rd March, 24th March, 14th April.  £40 per session, payable one session in advance - first session fee is your deposit.

Stockton-on-Tees dates (all Tuesdays), 11.30 a.m. to 4p.m. - at All Saints' Church, Hartburn - 12th September, 10th October, 14th November, 28th November, 9th January (to be confirmed), 13th February (to be confirmed), 27th February, 27th March, 22nd May. £32 per session, payable one session in advance - first session fee is your deposit.

Perth (all Thursdays) - at The Peacock and the Tortoise, Perth - 28th September, 26th Oct, 9th October, 23rd November, 7th December, 11th January and 1st February.  Fee for full course £280.

For Edinburgh and Stockton-on-Tees, please book directly via me.  For Perth, bookings will be handled by The Peacock and the Tortoise.

I'm also doing a rerun of last December's one off class at Edinburgh Patchwork, where we looked at designing our own panel inspired by marumon (circular designs), kamon crests and other traditional Japanese floral designs, using the kirigami paper cutting methods shown in old Japanese moncho (crest design books).  This will be on Sunday 10th December.  The workshop fee is £40 for the day and you can reserve your place with me using the contact details on my website.

New Edinburgh sashiko dates! - and sashiko samplers in progress

We had a get together for some of the sashiko students from this year's and last year's Edinburgh courses on Sunday, to see how everyone is getting on.  Catriona, Fiona and Jo brought their sampler blocks and we had fun trying out a few different arrangements, deciding on how to use the sashing and border fabrics etc.  With tea and refreshments organised by Fiona too.

I have arranged next season's dates for our sashiko course at Edinburgh Patchwork.  They are all Saturdays once again - 7th October 2017, 21st October, 18th November 25th November (I've had to change this as the workroom is double booked for another class!), 9th December, 3rd February 2018, 3rd March, 24th March and 14th April.  As we have done in previous years, the class will run from 10.30 a.m. to 4p.m. and the shop opens at 10.  The course outline is staying the same -
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• Session 1 - rice stitch variations and woven stitches - small samples –on 4 1/2in squares, with grids directly drawn on the fabrics.
• Session 2 - persimmon flower stitch, coin stitch and variations - small samples and long sampler, plus more variations on persimmon flower stitch - triple, igeta pattern, infinite - on 4 1/2in squares.
• Session 3 – introduction to flower diamond pattern, fish scale stitch, diamond stitch, abacus stitch - on 4 1/2in squares plus stitching on stripes and patterns in circles.
• Session 4 – fans and kamon crests – marking and stitching corner fans and family crests – on 9in squares, using paper templates for the fans and chaco transfer paper for the crests.
• Session 5 – drawing larger patterns with straight lines – raimon (lightning spiral), masuzashi (stacking boxes), asanoha (hemp leaf) and elongated asanoha – all on 9in squares.
• Session 6 – moths/butterflies, grasses and bamboo patterns – patterns for all over pictorial effects - on 4 1/2in squares
• Session 7 – drawing larger patterns with curved lines – shippou (seven treasures – like wineglass), fundou (balance weights – like applecore patchwork), nowaki (grasses in clamshell shapes), seigaiha (ocean waves, also clamshell shaped) and ganzezashi (sea urchin stitch, a variation on shippou) – all on 9in squares.
• Session 8 -– sewing samples together into a patchwork sampler – with a brief look at some of the denser hitomezashi patterns - paving block, kasuri (ikat) check, ground stitch, cedar stitch, facing butterfly, arrow stitch.  It will be possible to do this session with any combination of samples made in the previous sessions – 4 1/2in and 9in – using 1in sashing strips.

The cost this year will be £40 per session, payable one session in advance.  Please contact me via my website if you are interested in attending.

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This is Catriona's sampler in progress.  She is going to make a wallhanging (all three samplers from Sunday will be wallhangings) and luckily is just about to move into a new flat with high ceilings!  Apologies for the shadows in the photos. It was really sunny on Sunday and the room we were in had a logo on the window, and pillars on the facade.

Fiona with her sampler (and I'm trying to block the light a bit!)  She is going to use the green/ochre/cream striped tsumugi cotton in the first photo for her sashing, playing with the stripes going in different directions.  There are touches of green/autumn coloured shaded threads from Hida Sashiko here and there on the blocks too.

Jo's sampler will include a gorgeous hemp and cotton stencilled yukata along with striped tsumugi shading across blues and purples, and a two tone purple and black tsumugi for the sashing.  Lovely effects possible with these fabrics and the sashiko blocks. Purple details in the blocks.

I tried another photo a bit further away from the window!

Sam and her mum Pamela from last year's group joined us. These are the panels they started in the extra December class we did last year, where we made marumon (circular designs) inspired by kamon crests and other Japanese designs, making kirikami papercuts for our templates.  Sam's panel is above.

Jo also made a panel in that class and it is almost finished, inspired by a piece of antique Japanese embroidery.

I've been asked to run this class again - are people interested in it?