A spot of sashiko

The other block this week for the Something New Sampler was some sashiko. Jess over at The Elven Garden gave a great tutorial on how to do sashiko. There some great interpretations of this block appearing in the flickr group too.

It was suggested that a fabric with a slightly looser weave like a linen or cotton / linen blend. I didn't have anything like that, that would match the colours I have used for the other blocks so I just used one of my fabrics. It seemed to work well.

In her post there was a link to a site for printing patterns like hexagons, triangles and octagons. So I played for a while and ended up with this design:

At the Houston Quilt Festival we found some lovely threads. Luckily one of the random colours I purchased seemed to go quite nicely with my fabrics. The thread is Lizbeth by Handy Hands , Inc. This particular one was a size 40 which was not too thick but a bit like a perle 8 thread.

I haven't actually sewn with any of these threads before, but this was a great thread to hand sew with. I shall have to find some other projects that need some hand stitches. 

Anyway, finally the picture of my block:

The lighter part of the thread is not showing up very well in my poorly lit room. Wondering if my fabric was possibly a bit busy. I am lacking a plain fabric in my set of fabrics, which is going to be a challenge when I come to put them together at the end.

Anyway, here are my four blocks together on the design wall.

There are another two blocks next week - trapunto and Cathedral Windows. I have used both these techniques before so it will be interesting to see how these are given a new modern twist.

If you want to check it out, all the details can be found at The Cute Life.