Saturday 9 December 2017

the pleasure of slow stitching



Add close up of patchwork and sashiko stitching on the coat front

full front of the coat

top of the back, showing stenciling and unfinished stitching

back of the coat, the black middle section is unfinished

For the last month I've been enjoying the pleasures of slow stitching. The black and white coat in the pictures is one of the projects I've been working on. For a short time I was all excited thinking I was pioneering a new technique of combining stenciling and sashiko stitching then discovered the Japanese had covered this territory more than a hundred years ago with "Katazome"....oh well, nothing new under the Sun, as they say. 

I'm still enthusiastic to make a tutorial about my contemporary version and approach to combining stencil, boro and sashiko. Perhaps I can call it "the surface of the Moon"....?!! The traditional approach to Katazome is admirable but challenging to use in a modern context. 

I have been working on about 6 items of clothing with the intention of using them as examples in the potential future publication and will show some more soon. I'm particularly enjoying working with recycled denim. 

Heres another example....

recycled denim skirt embellished with stenciling and sashiko stitching, as yet unfinshed