Sashiko Prep

After falling in love with sashiko and making a couple of little cloths that ended up as whiteboard cleaners in my classroom last year, I wondered how I could continue to include sashiko in my sewing life. I wanted to try lots of different patterns but I also wanted them to be part of something practical. Luckily, inspiration hit. 

I had unintentionally made whiteboard cleaners with my last round, so why not make more? My classes often use mini whiteboards at their desks or on the floor, but I have no class set of erasers or cloths for them. At the moment, I just have the kids flip their boards and give them a quick rub on the carpet to clean them off. Unconventional, I'll admit, but it does the job. 

Anyway, back to sashiko. If I had a class set of say, 25 or so small cloths, these could easily be used for whiteboard cleaning. And I could use them to spark the students interest in Japan with Japanese patterns! It's a lesson in and of itself. Or run a lunchtime club with the older students to teach them sashiko too! Everything is learning. 

So I went through my scrap fabrics looking for anything plain and robust in reds and blues. I ended up throwing in a piece of purple too, since the scrap that I had (probably from Aunty Sue) cut into six double sided little squares quite easily. Some of the scraps I recognise and know exactly where they are from (Blue lining fabric from my Mary Poppins Skirt, and two blue squares from the actual skirt material, one blue square from a pillowcase (just like the last sashiko), some from Sophie's Lana costume, red denim from my mum that's been in various things is the only red I recognise though!)

I took a bunch of the red ones first and drew up the grids and patterns I wanted to try. I was sewing these at church, but also in our staff meetings and the three days of professional development we did at the start of the year. I don't know if it was that the pens are old and I was pushing hard, that the ink stayed on a long time before I ironed it off, or some other reason, but the fabric pen ink didn't disappear as magically as it usually does. I am not offended by it, since they are just going to be used as whiteboard cleaners by a bunch of primary school students, but it does make me cautious about using them on future projects.

Part of me thinks I'm getting better at sashiko, while another part of me disagrees quite strongly. I like the sake bottle design one more than I thought I would. Designs with two colours also appeal to me, and the circle one is also a fav. I am beginning to realise thread colour choice is very important. 

That red one with the orange thread is very poor indeed (pictured at the start of the post). Which is why I stopped doing it. I think I need to unpick all that work and try again, with much more focus on my stitch length and how many I have on each line. 

In the mean time, I took a foray into the purple fabrics (which look rather grey in these photos, but are actually a nice mauve in real life), but I don't know if it's the thread colour I chose, fabric or the designs, but I don't love them either. One of the purple ones has some of the best intentionally small stitches ever, but something seems off. 

My guess is the thread colour. The designs just don't pop because there isn't enough contrast. Will have to choose something darker for the next one. 

In the mean time, I'm eight designs in, with two WIP, and four marked up waiting to have thread added. 21 squares of prepped fabric in various shades of blue and red still hold in stasis until I can get the book from the library with the patterns again. I don't know if it will come before we leave for Japan. In that case I'll either have to find a Japanese book in Japan, or try my luck with the internet. Both of these options are pretty workable. 

This project is so perfect for travel too, since they are small and portable. Looking forward to having a class set of these for my classes. Hopefully the students appreciate it, though I doubt it. Not because they are malicious (well, most of them aren't), but the rest just won't because they are kids.