quilting t he quilt By Dawn Cavanaugh. The Art of Sashiko The ancient art of sashiko originated from necessity, but has become a popular modern quilting technique. WEB Extra Go to www.FonsandPorter.com/sashikostitches to download stitching diagrams for these designs. 106 Fons k Porter’s Love of Quilting November/December 2011 www.FonsandPorter.com S ashiko originated among Japanese peasants who used a running-stitch technique to patch their worn and torn clothing. Because cloth and thread were valuable and rare, patching was both frugal and necessary. Depending on the nature of their labor, areas of their garments had multiple patched layers. A farmer’s clothing might have many patches across the shoulders where the yoke of a two-bucket carrying pole rested as he walked. A fisherman’s trousers would have multiple layers at the knees for protection as he knelt in the boat to pull in his net. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, sashiko stitching became less utilitarian and more artistic, appearing in clothing of upper society. The technique faded during the early twentieth century, but by the 1970s had regained popularity in Japan. As the influence of American patchwork spread east, the impact of sashiko on quilting designs spread west. Today, many quilting designs across the globe find their roots in sashiko. Although sashiko is traditionally stitched by hand, we can replicate much of its beauty by machine. Thanks to precision stitch regulator technology, we can also look like we are experts with very little effort. Longarm machines offer the advantage of stabilizing the quilt layers on the frame, and decorative threads work well in the needle. To duplicate the look of true sashiko, use a heavy thread (12-weight will produce a traditional sashiko look). Finer threads will work, but create less drama and visual impact, as seen in Photo A, which compares a 12-weight thread to a 50-weight thread. If you desire only the texture created by a repeating sashiko design, match your thread color to the background fabric. Traditional sashiko was stitched with white cotton thread that did not come in skeins or on spools— thread lengths were random and inconsistent. Early sashiko artists simply buried their thread tails when they ran out of thread and began again. We have the luxury of a continuous thread supply. Plan your design path to take advantage of that whenever possible. If you must stop and start, use a traditional quilter’s knot to tie and bury your starting and stopping threads. If you’d like to try stitching sashiko designs with a regular sewing machine and heavy decorative thread, consider working from the back side of your project. Mark your sashiko design on the backing fabric using one of the methods described on page 110. Wind the heavy thread on your bobbin instead of putting it through the needle. Loosen the bobbin case tension considerably and use a regular-weight thread on top. Adjust your tension so that you actually see a very small dot of the bobbin thread pulling up to the surface with each stitch. This will ensure that the bobbin thread gives a hand-stitched appearance on the quilt’s right side. If you prefer to work from the front of the quilt, use A 108 Fons k Porter’s Love of Quilting November/December 2011 www.FonsandPorter.com a topstitch needle to accommodate the thicker thread. Loosen the top tension and tighten the bobbin tension to form deep stitches on the surface. Longarm quilters whose machines have a complex thread path with more than one tensioner may also want to load the quilt so that the backing faces up. Complicated thread paths can make some decorative threads hard to manage and cause thread breakage or tension issues. If you can bypass some of your thread guides, you will have more control over your tension. Use a heavy needle such as an 18 or 20 in your longarm to reduce needle flex and skipped stitches with thicker thread. If your thread path is simple, you should be able to use the thicker decorative thread in your needle without much change other than the tension adjustments described for domestic machines above. Use a longer stitch length to mimic sashiko hand stitches. You’ll discover there are many wonderful books available that describe sashiko in detail and provide literally hundreds of designs. Many designs will adapt easily to machine quilting, but some may be too complex for beginners. Check out the stencils at your quilt shop—many are based on sashiko designs. Use a pounce pad filled with iron-off chalk for easy marking (Photo B) or use your favorite marking tool. (Test marking products to be sure they are removable before using them on your project.) Chalk lines are best for simple designs without lots of crossover lines. Water-soluble stabilizer sheets work well for detailed sashiko designs.You can feed them through your computer printer, so you only need to draw your design once. Color code the stitching lines as seen in Photo C and in the patterns provided. Mark lines to be stitched with different colors so you aren’t confused at line intersections. Place the stabilizer on your quilt and secure it with pins or a watersoluble spray-basting product. Stitch directly through the paper, following the lines you’ve drawn (Photo D). Peel off as much paper as possible, and then soak the project in water to dissolve the remaining stabilizer fibers. As you study sashiko designs, you’ll find many that look as if they can’t be stitched by machine. But remember, you can choose to backtrack or stitch double lines where a person stitching by hand would have added stops and starts— that’s a bonus! All it takes is a little practice, and you’ll quickly become a sashiko master with an electric needle! B C D Author Profile Dawn Cavanaugh is National Director of Education for APQS Quilting Machines. Contact: dawn@apqs.com www.apqs.com. 110 Fons k Porter’s Love of Quilting November/December 2011 www.FonsandPorter.com