sashiko is not as easy as it looks...

My standard gift for weddings and christenings has for many years now been a hand stitched sampler, done properly in cross stitch on evenly woven linen, recording the names and dates and decorated with old-fashioned flowers and patterns. I love doing these, even though it takes forever and the technique seems to have falled out of favour with the embroidery fashionistas.

This time, however, I've left it far too late to make a proper sampler, and so I decided to try something different and hopefully a lot quicker. Japanese crafts are very on trend at the moment, so inspired by other people's lovely work on Flickr, I thought I'd have a go at sashiko embroidery. How hard can it be? It's only running stitch...

It's typical of me I'm afraid that I never try anything out properly before jumping in at the deep end, so this, my very first attempt, which should really have gone in the bin, has to be framed and wrapped up and offered as a christening present next weekend. I feel a bit embarrassed about this, but they're old friends, and hopefully we can make up for it with a lot of babysitting.

I think I will stick to my trusty split stitch in future. And I promise not to scoff at Japanese craft techniques for being easy peasy again. Sumimasen.

Flickr credits: 1. Landscape 3, 2. bluesewn-02, 3. spring has come cushion

9 comments:

Gigibird said...

oh come off it, I was expecting a pile of knots - it's fine. You know I'm going to have to give it a go now.

Sue said...

Humble thanks... don't forget the power of the macro lens to make almost anything look ok though...

Gigibird said...

not the hair on my upper lip.........

Frances said...

Sashiko looks a bit tricky to me, but I can see that you were able to find a way to make that spiral yours.

I will have to look into the sashiko technique ... when that phantom time that always eludes, is mine.

Isn't it odd that the more interests that we get, it becomes more difficult to find time to choose just one of them to pursue.

xo

Gilly said...

I'm certain they will love it!

Sue said...

Many thanks all! All day I have been contemplating ditching the sashiko sampler and doing a proper one, but in the spirit of calm and self acceptance I have decided to take a deep breath and wrap it up - I am a terrible perfectionist and waste a lot of time going over the same thing again and again. This is one of my thoughts for 2009 - ways to keep moving and not get stuck.

Art4Sol said...

I gave up on Sashiko as well...enjoy free form style stitchery much more. Love your work.
Darlene

melissa said...

it's beautiful! and i agree.. sashiko is so hard. you've made it look lovely here, though.

cloth.paper.string said...

oh my, such loveliness!