Patterns: Sashiko Placemats

Sashiko placemats from Aimee Ray's Doodle Stitching: Embroidery and Beyond

Check out Aimee Ray's blog for a free tutorial and pattern for Sashiko placemats, as featured in her latest book, Doodle Stitching: Embroidery and Beyond. I think they'd make fantastic Christmas presents! (you can groan now, sorry for mentioning the C word ;) )

Tutorial Tuesday

Hi everyone! Happy Tuesday!

I have a tutorial round-up for you today, with some great projects ideas and stitching techniques. Hope you enjoy and give one, or all of them, a try!

Do you have a favorite scrapbooking stamp you wish you could embroider? Jennet Mae Jones shows you how over at the Feathered Nest Studio. 

If you are like me, you love having embroidery everywhere, including accessories, and sunglasses are no exception. Head over to Honestly WTF, for instructions on how to make your own pair of cross-stitched sunglasses.

If you need a new case for your stitched sunglasses, or would like a cute new pencil case, Gingermelon Dolls has a super cute tutorial. This is a great tutorial to practice your blanket stitch with. 

Japanese needlework known as, Sashiko, is gaining in popularity. If you would like to learn how to Sashiko, head over to Saké Puppets for quick lesson. 

There are so many amazing tutorials that are available, but these are just a few that I thought you would enjoy.

Hope you have a happy Tuesday!

Patterns: Sashiko

Sashiko Style Embroidery by Home Baked Online

Although Sashiko is normally stitched in one colour, I love Home Baked Online's colourful interpretation. You can read more about Home Baked Online's inspiration here, which links to some free sashiko patterns. 

I also recommend checking out Aimee Ray's new book, Doodle Stitching: Embroidery & Beyond, which has a chapter on Sashiko and Shisha or Jane Brocket's The Gentle Art of Stitching, which also has a short chapter on the subject. Can you recommend any other good sources of Sashiko inspiration? We'd love to hear from you in the comments section below!

Love Maze

Boy- I really like this embroidered maze bag by drummbellina on etsy. It's so simple and yet, so complex! Like, oh I dunno...love? (It also makes me think of sashiko.) A maze! Why didn't I think of that? Why didn't you think of that? Thank goodness she thought of it!

(Yes, it took all my willpower to not call this an a-"maze"-ing bag. Oh wait, I just did. Dang.)

Link

Sashiko potholder

stitched by Stoneview

I love this Sashiko potholder that Julie is working on. And I don't know about you, but I really dig extreme closeups of textiles and works in progress...

Sashiko Embroidery

Hi everyone! This is my first post on Feeling Stitchy! Thanks so much to Floresita for asking me to contribute. I have two blogs of my own, the Sublime Stitching Blog and Embroidery As Art. I haven't seen anything posted here yet about the traditional Japanese embroidery of sashiko (did I miss it?), which I first learned about last summer. We all love our pretty colors and fancy stitches, but it's the quiet simplicity and humbleness of sashiko that lends its beauty. Sashiko reminds me why I started stitching in the first place: to meditate. Something tells me this style of embroidery is going to grow in popularity... There is a wonderful tutorial on sashiko at the purl bee that covers the history and the tools (check out the crazy thimble!).

Special thanks to water-fall on Flickr for granting permission to share her lovely photo.