Sensational Sashiko by Machine

The Victoria Quilters' Guild (my home guild) recently invited Sharon Pederson to present a weekend of workshops. I've wanted to take a class with Sharon for a long time. We've known each other for at least 20 years - when we would meet annually at the Satin Moon huge half price sale in the 1990's!

Sharon will be retiring from the teaching circuit soon so this was my opportunity to learn a new technique and spend a day with Sharon.








I signed up for the Sensational Sashiko by Machine workshop. Like Sharon, I really like machine sewing and was curious about sewing these traditional Japanese designs by machine.  Sharon gave us an introduction to the topic with information about the history, recommended books and some examples of both hand and machine sashiko.

Then we began learning how to stitch the designs - as continuously as possible so we would not have lots of stops and starts and thread ends to sew in. It was amazing how we could get around all the designs in 'one go'!

I finished 3 of the blocks in the workshop, came home and finished the last one and then decided to make a small quilt by adding some Japanese fabric I've been holding on to for just the right project!

In addition to sashiko, Sharon shared her 'reversible quilts' technique so I could join the sashiko blocks and my extra quilted blocks with sashing and then bind the quilt. 

 

Thanks for the class Sharon - it was a blast!