Denman College pictorial sashiko course

At the beginning of last week, I taught a three night residential sashiko course at Denman College.  This course focused on using pictorial design sources for sashiko, so it benefitted from having more time for developing designs at the start of the course. It is the second time Denman have run this course - click here for photos of the first one.  This time we were in the Textile Studio, so there was plenty of wall space to display pieces at the end.

We used various sources for design inspirations. This bamboo panel was marked using a template for the leaves and the bamboo stems drawn freehand, starting with a small illustration from a Japanese embroidery book but developing the design. It is stitched in hand dyed perle threads.  I'm hoping to have the finished piece to display at Quiltfest in February.

 

There were several pieces on a pine tree theme, with the pine boughs filled in with various hitomezashi stitch patterns.  It isn't easy filling in irregular shapes like these.

 

I started a new panel myself (far left, with triple comma crest and cherry blossom), which I might develop into a kit or a magazine project.

 

This is the small hitomezashi sampler at the bottom of the photo above - lovely!

 

There were several fan panels and two kimono designs.  The chrysanthemums on the second one were made with a template, the same way as the fan motifs, with the petal details filled in by hand.

 

 

The circular crab motif (lower panel) is adapted from a sword hilt.

 

This butterfly panel is based on a design by Eiko Yoshida, with moifications to make the most of the size of the fabric.

 

 

The main house at Denman has some interesting design details that could make good sashiko designs - I wonder if anyone is up for a challenge?  ;-)

 

 

  

 My next residential course will be at The Royal, Bridlington, at the end of October - click here for details.

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.

At Denman College

The course started this evening. The students are going to be making pictorial designs in sashiko, filled in with hitomezashi stitches. Tonight we just had a relaxing session, looking at how I designed and made the Denman Kannon, plus how different threads, fabrics and stitches produce different effects.

As some of the students have already done the first sashiko course and have stitched some hitomezashi patterns already, tomorrow we will start off with the grass pattern kusazashi the Yuza Sashiko quilters taught at Harrogate. It will be new for everyone and is a good way to learn the basics of marking and stitching hitomezashi designs, plus it is a pattern which 'grows' quickly !

Abergavenny, near Andover and near Abingdon - sashiko & talks

No photos from my "Travels with a Bag Lady" talk and sashiko workshop with Cibi Quilters in Abergavenny earlier this week, as I forgot to take any - if anyone else did, can you send me them please? Thank you to the group and Marylin for being great hosts.

On Thursday I was near Andover, with Sprat and Winkle Quilters (great name!) for the "Sashiko and Country Textiles" talk. On Friday morning, my host Pat took me to their local quilt shop, Quilter's Dream, which has some great fabric selections, including some African fabrics I liked very much and some taupes that will be appearing in my next book.

On Friday, I went back up to the WI's Denman College at Marcham near Abingdon, where we had a super sashiko weekend. Unlike the courses I have taught there earlier, this one ran over four days instead of three, so everyone could get started on a larger project. The amount of designs that were marked and stitched, and the great combinations of patterns within them, didn't surprise me too much - I've seen how stitchers can get hooked on sashiko very quickly - but I think the students didn't believe me when I told them on the first night they would be going home with a lot of pieces!

Here are some general views of the workshop. We were in the Studio in the Education block this time.





The sashiko works -



This time, we made really good use of the college's media facilities, with a large LCD TV screen showing images from my computer and from the internet, so during over the weekend we watched the Yuza sashiko video clip and lots of slideshows of sashiko from Yuza etc. While we were there, Reiko Domon sent me these photos of the Yuza Sashiko School at work, so we saw those too! I hope she enjoys our photos as much as my group enjoyed her pictures.

It is a shame that Japan is 8 - 9 hours ahead of the UK (depending on the time of year), as it would be great otherwise to set up a live webcam link between a class at Denman College and Yuza Sashiko School. Perhaps we could link up an early evening session there with a morning class here. With the facilities at Denman, I think we could do it, so it would be great to try!

You can see one of the photos above on the TV screen below.


For the class at Abergavenney and Denman College, I'm looking forward to seeing some finished pieces, so please send me photos!