Teal Coffee Fukin

Pattern/Technique: Coffee Sashiko Fukin Club by SASHIKO.LAB

Modifications: I used the Daruma gridded hanafukin cloth, which required a slight mod to stitch at the midpoint of each cross to get the correct number of stitches. (Kazue covers this in detail in the course materials.)

Materials:

New skills: kuguri-sashi

Lessons/Notes:

This course combined two methods of sashiko: hitomezashi, where you make a single stitch from point to point on your grid (in this case I used a 5mm grid so each stitch length is 5mm); and kuguri-sashi, a technique where you then weave through your earlier stitches.

When doing kuguri-sashi you should use the back/eye of the needle to weave the thread through the stitches so that you don’t catch the cloth with the sharp end of the needle.

I trimmed all the ends of my sashiko thread as I went, but what you’re actually supposed to do is trim after washing the finished hanafukin (I think because it’s essentially blocking the finished cloth, which may loosen the fabric/threads).

For the border, I opted to hand sew a border around the edge of the mat (approx 1/8” in from the edge) to catch the raw edges of the fabric that had been folded under. I used sewing thread (Guterman) held double in a navy that matched the background cloth.

I love how the variegation in the hand dyed indigo/gardenia sashiko thread looks across the woven pattern, giving it motion and depth. While photographing it, I realized it reminded me of the shimmering Northern Lights. (I have 2 vivid memories of the aurora: coming home from a school event on a cold winter night, getting out of my car and seeing a quarter of the sky shimmering just to the right of the big dipper; and sitting at a campfire with my grandma during the summer.) It wasn’t my goal with this project, but I think my subconscious was connecting to home & the past in some way as I stitched.

What I'd do differently: On my next hanafukin, I’d like to try and align the raw/folded edges of my cloth so that the border section is a bit more balanced across the length/width of the cloth. I’ll also probably machine sew the raw edges together with right sides facing, then turn the right sides out to hide the raw seam instead of trying to fold the edges under and hand baste.

Care: Machine wash cold (though I actually hand washed mine to prevent the natural dye from bleeding), dry flat

French Link Stitch Book

Pattern/Technique: French Link Stitch Book Kit from Clever Hands

Modifications: n/a

Materials: French Link Stitch Book Kit from Clever Hands

New skills: French link stitch, creating book covers, book assembly, preparing & stitching signatures

Lessons/Notes: This kit was a ton of fun - despite a few issues from misreading instructions (or failing to read far enough ahead) that required some improvised fixes.

I assembled the book in the opposite direction than specified in the directions, but the orientation of the kettle stitch was easy to switch, and the finished kettle stitch is so pretty (despite some wonky tension on my part). I also forgot to do the french link stitch on the last hole of each signature, but I winged it by doing a series of pseudo-link stitches after all the signatures were attached.

When using binder clips to hold the signatures in place for stitching, placing a little piece of paper beneath the binder clip will prevent the paper from getting bruised. Also, when clipping the guide in place for punching the stitching holes in the signatures, the instructions specify using one binder clip, but the guide and signature paper would shift a bit when holding open the signature, causing the awl holes to be off center. Using 2 binder clips to even the force eliminated this shifting.

Using a thin layer of glue and working quickly was a huge help.

When cutting out the bookcloth, I didn’t read the instructions correctly that you should leave a 4mm gap between the corner of the book board and the 45 degree cut, which meant that I had little gaps at all of the corners on one of my covers. I glued the cut triangles in the corners of the inner cover and used this as the back cover so it isn’t terribly visible but I’m still a little bummed about the error.

I trimmed the leather strips to 2 inches because I didn’t want them to be super long, but It ended up looking a little oddly proportioned, so I ended up trimming them down to 1 inch which looked better (IMO).

What I'd do differently: Do the french link stitches at the last hole in each signature. Leave the leather strips at their original length and only trim to even them up. Leave the gap between the corner of the book board and the 45 degree cut on the book cloth.