28th and 29th June 2019 SASHIKO

The Friday evening branch meeting was well attended as befitted the interest in hearing about Stella Jelski’s adventurous foreign travels and seeing all the glorious textile souvenirs she has collected en route. 

 

Stella concentrated on just a few of the countries she has visited, namely Laos, Thailand, Peru and Japan.  Some of Stella’s experiences were quite hair raising!  For instance moving hotel from a very shabby, dirty hotel to a more modern looking one (arranged by themselves and not their incompetent personal tour guide!) only to have a maid knock on all their doors in the evening to liberally douse the rooms and beds (which had straw mattresses!) with anti-cockroach treatment!  On that same trip, Stella regaled us with the tale of how, once they had reached their final destination, which had taken days, the return journey took just  one day!  However, the travel method was by river, in a very flimsy, canoe-type vessel with the three of them sitting one behind the other with their suitcases in between and the boat powered by an outboard!  Toilet stops were a whole other experience!

 

But despite these adversities Stella managed to collect a wonderful array of textile pieces from each country.  There were some glorious woven, embroidered and knitted pieces from Peru – as well as Alpaca fur hats and cushions, which were coveted by all!  Stella said that Peru was a particularly magical trip.  Then there were beautifully woven silk scarves from Thailand.  There, Stella had even enrolled on a weaving course and she showed us the sample she had made, which was very intricate.  The course also included dyeing the silk.  There were other wonderful objects such as jewellery, little pots and hand-made paper items from Japan and Thailand.

 

All in all, I think we were all impressed with Stella’s fortitude and humour – as well as coveting all the beautiful objects she had collected.

Saturday's workshop with Sheila Huxley was also well attended.

Getting down to it!

We were provided with a kit each containing two pieces of the traditional dark blue (indigo) material, the special needles(with nice big eyes!) and the soft white thread. Sheila instructed us how to lay out a grid and measure out the sashiko patterns. Once this was accomplished, we were able to start stitching. "Just a simple running stitch" BUT each stitch should be the size of a grain of rice, the gap between half the length of the stitch and, where lines intersect, the stitches must not cross over...

A sample of Sheila's lovely, traditional design

Sheila had also brought along some different ways of using sashiko to produce decorative and useful items.

It was a relaxing and pleasant way to spend a Saturday and, for once, most of us had something nearing completion to take away.