sashiko love

Happy New Year!
I wish your 2014 will be a very happy, contented, brilliant, and peaceful year.

I just came back from our one-week winter holiday and now I'm full of energy and feel like starting something nice and new. The thing is, I have no clue of what I'd start, yet. Haha I think I'll see (if I find anything to start) by the end of 2014!

I hope you had a refreshing break during this time of the year too!

We spent our break in Kyushu, which is one of the southwesterly islands of Japan, to stay with my parents. My mother, who is kind and very gentle-natured, has been working on "sashiko" embroidery for years and she asked me if I could take some photographs of her sashiko makes during my stay. Of course I willingly became a photographer for her and for her makes! We had our photo session in a lovely small park nearby their house for her sashiko jackets. I'd share some of them here, because I remember that some of you were kindly interested in her sashiko and asked me if I could show the embroidery in better pictures on my old post. I hope you enjoy them. I'm happy if you find some inspirations from something probably unfamiliar and new to you too!

my mum, petite and clever, in love with sashiko.
If you would like to have a read about sashiko embroidery, I find it well written here;
http://www.quilt.com/FAQS/SashikoFAQ.html
and always there is wiki for anything interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sashiko_stitching

*small photographs can be clicked to enlarge.

Most of the embroidered parts are done after cutting yet before sewing. What is amazing to me is, the embroideries that are overpassing seams are done after sewing to keep the continuous patterns beautifully.

My mum uses traditional coarse cotton fabrics and very thick threads. Those traditional plain fabrics are usually hand-woven and natural dyed (not by my mum though) and have charming charactor in itself even before sashiko applied. The garments as well as sashiko patterns are usually self drafted by her, and all seams are also sewn by hands. According to her, one sashiko garment can be finished quite quickly because all procedure is very simple, but she thinks a year for this kind of jacket from planning to finishing because it makes the stitches even and look more elaborated.

(by the way, I sewed the V-neck pullover and flowery skirt.)



Happy sewing to you!
xoxo

yoshimi