The Endeavourers’ Reveal Day, November 2025 — Sashiko

It is time once again for our online group to reveal projects in response to a quarterly theme.  This time it was “Sashiko,” which is a traditional Japanese craft, often done with white stitching on indigo cloth.  I had never done any, so I went through all the books I got in a Blockbuster Book Haul last year, looking for resources.

I found four books:

Sashiko: Traditional Japanese Quilt Designs by Nihon Vogue. Along with charted traditional designs, this book includes some ideas of stitching modern motifs in multicolors.

Sashiko and Beyond: Techniques and projects for quilting in the Japanese style by Saikoh Takano.  This books has full-page charts of the traditional designs, and also a huge section on combining sashiko with applique.

Sashiko: Easy Elegant Designs for Decorative Machine Embroidery by Mary Parker.  This book explains how to replicate the sashiko look, by using a sewing machine.  It involves using photocopies and a iron-transfer pen to mark the design on the wrong side of the fabric, and then using heavy thread in the bobbin to achieve the effect. There are a lot of tips for achieving precision, and instructions for 25 projects.

The Techniques of Japanese Embroidery by Shuji Tamura of The Japanese Embroidery Center.  This book does not have any sashiko in it, but some of its geometric designs are similar, and I wanted to try some of them.

Looking for a base fabric, I came across this:

A piece of Japanese silk.

Close up of the label.

I put these images in Google Lens and was given the following information:

This image shows a piece of Japanese fabric, specifically a type of textile known as kasuri. The text on the fabric identifies it as “Kobayashi Kin-kasuri Yamato Hana-monyou” (Kobayashi silk kasuri, Yamato flower pattern). 

  • Kasuri is a Japanese weaving technique similar to ikat, where the threads are dyed in a specific pattern before the fabric is woven. 

    The characteristic blurry or feathered edges of the patterns are a result of this resist-dyeing process. 

    This particular fabric is identified as silk (kin-kasuri) and features a “Yamato” or traditional Japanese floral design. 

    Kasuri textiles have been produced in Japan since at least the mid-18th century and were traditionally hand-woven. 

I did not want to try the machine-stitched technique.  I knew hand-stitching would take a lot of time, and I decided to just embellish the design on the fabric (saving myself time on marking stitch patterns).  I experimented with different threads  — embroidery floss, machine embroidery threads, even thin gold thread from Japan — and with the recommended techniques from the different books — working with and without a hoop, with and without a backing cloth.  I got the best results working with no hoop, and no backing cloth, and my favorite thread was Wonderfil Razzle which is rayon.

I also stitched a version of this pattern on a separate piece of fabric.

I attempted this embroidery pattern from the book The Techniques of Japanese Embroidery.

I stitched along the light lines, and along the circles surrounding the flowers.  I used thin gold thread on the orange peel pattern, but it doesn’t show up.  The white flower was done separately and attached with a lot of machine stitching around the edges. I enjoyed the hand stitching, but the hours of work really don’t show up in this piece.

The silk fabric with some sashiko embellishment, and a stuffed, embroidered flower.

Details showing the stitching a little better.

And in a departure from the group’s rules, I didn’t make this as a stand-alone piece.  Back in February I started a sampler quilt with Asian fabrics, and I want this to be one of the blocks in it.  Here is what I have so far:

My sashiko piece is in the center of these blocks that will someday be a sampler quilt.

I don’t think I will ever return to this technique, but I did learn a whole new respect for it!  If you would like to see what the other group members accomplished, you can check out our group blog, The Endeavourers.

 

 

 

Category : Embroidery
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