Making a Sashiko Christmas Tree
/So Christmas is coming (Yay!) and I am working on some bits and bobs for the festive season, but I wanted to return to something I made late in December last year and didn’t have time to write up a post about. It will be one of the first things I put out this year on December 1st.
If you follow me you will know that I am quite a fan of the Japanese form of hand embroidery known as Sashiko and last November I followed Sashiko Lab’s ‘24 days of Sashiko’ and was completely enamoured. This was an online daily programme that taught some of the basic patterns in this fascinating genre of stitching and I made it up into a really fab table runner.
I will pop a link to the posting about this at the end. I followed this up by buying the pdf pattern for the Christmas tree. It was a real joy to make and so interesting to see how the patterns built up to form the shape of the tree. It is quite time consuming to mark all the dots on your fabric in the beginning, but then it is quite quick to stitch up. I probably didn’t help myself by working on a printed fabric that isn’t squares and has all sorts of distractions on it, but I was thinking of grey winter skies heavy with snow and it does look pretty cool when it’s done. It starts like this.
Once you have reached this stage it becomes a bit more relaxing to work on because your tree is formed. The next stage is to add all the vertical crosses.
Then you can begin to work the patterns.
The intricate patterns are lovely to work on and after doing the Sashiko sampler it is fun to apply some of the techniques to a form. I find the construction of the design extremely well thought out and the way the blocks of pattern interlock works so harmoniously you almost feel like singing Christmas Carols in celebration!
I added a snow flurry of matt silver sequins sprinkled around the edge of design and while I was stitching it, I had decided that I would make it into a cushion and use quilted borders to enhance my tree. A narrow pompom trim was the perfect touch to join them.
When this was done, I was so absolutely thrilled with it because the colours are so soft and subtle and it shimmers beautifully in candlelight and looks really quite dreamy. The instructions were clear and easy to follow and of course the variations are endless. What a gorgeous Christmas gift it would make too.
I am busy making a ‘Scrooge’Christmas ornament at the moment so I hope you will check back soon to see that along with another tiny festive project. Meanwhile…..
If you are interested to see more of Sashiko Lab click here
The Christmas Tree Pattern is available here
My posting about ‘24 Days of Sashiko’ is here
