Sashiko Reveal: Mermie's Cabin

Good morning, my friends. The day has come to reveal my newest art quilt for The Endeavourers art quilt group. Our prompt this time around was "Sashiko." If you're unfamiliar with sashiko, the word is Japanese for "little stabs." Wikipedia defines it in this way:

[A] type of traditional Japanese embroidery or stitching used for the decorative and/or functional reinforcement of cloth and clothing. Owing to the relatively cheap nature of white cotton thread and the abundant nature of cheap, indigo-dyed blue cloth in historical Japan, sashiko has a distinctive appearance of white-on-blue embroidery, though some decorative pieces may also use red thread.

Before I show you my finished quilt, let me tell you first about Plan A. When this prompt was announced, we’d just returned from our trip to Alaska…our 50th state, visited just after our 50th wedding anniversary. We called it the Fifty-Fifty trip. That’s beside the point. You probably already knew that, but I’m mouthy, and I like telling that story. Anyway…while we were in Alaska, we were fortunate to be among the 30% of visitors who actually get to see Denali. This was a picture I took when we pulled off the road.

I spent some time perusing Pinterest, looking for inspiration. If you’re a regular follower, then you know I love hand embroidery. It’s an important part of every single morning. Some of the images I saw on Pinterest made me wonder if I could recreate my image of Denali using the sashiko technique. So I printed my image onto a sheet of Sticky Fabri-Solvy and went to work on it. I’d planned to stitch parallel running stitches in the various colors from the image.

After stitching on it for a few days, I started having doubts about whether this was going to work. Without some kind of outlining, I didn’t see how it would ever look like anything other than a bunch of random stitches. I hadn’t decided to give it up yet, but I was thinking about what else I might do. Randomly one evening, I was in our spare bedroom where this watercolor painting hangs on the wall.

It was painted by Mike’s grandmother. I’m wishing I had a good picture of her. Her name was Olive Riddle. Mike called her "Mermie." She's second from the left in the picture below. It's not a very good picture of her, and her eyes were closed. 

She was a very classy lady and drove a sporty Camaro when she was in her 80's. She was in her mid-70's when her husband passed away, and she soon took up watercolor painting as a way to fill the empty hours. She clearly had a passion for her art, and she was very prolific. In the same way the walls of my sewing room are covered in small quilts, her living room walls were covered in her beautiful watercolor paintings. About half a dozen of them adorn the walls of our own home.

Obviously, the picture above was taken on our wedding day. At the far left is Mike's great aunt Gwen. That's Mike's mom and dad on the right. You can probably figure out the bride and groom, but I can't miss this opportunity to add that Mike worked for a flower shop before he became an engineer. He made my bridal bouquet, and it was beautiful. And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that my mother lovingly made my dress and veil.

So, as I looked at the watercolor on the wall, I could envision it in stitching. I had an idea to outline the main subjects in stem stitch, and then fill in the interiors with different sashiko patterns. I took a picture of her painting, and then printed it as a photograph. 

In preparation for this project, I'd already purchased some sashiko templates. I used them for inspiration and then as guides to help me trace the stitching patterns I wanted to use.

Then I traced the design onto fabric.

And then I just stitched and stitched and stitched until it was finished. I only had a loose plan about how to stitch various sections, and made some decisions as I went along.

When it was finished, I trimmed it very close to the stitching, and then added borders. The pattern in the gray batik seemed just right for this piece dedicated to sashiko.

And then I quilted it on my domestic sewing machine by stitching very, very close to the stem stitching. The quilting is mainly functional, but it also gave some texture to the piece.

When the quilting was finished it looked like this from the back.

All that was left to do was to add the binding. Here is my finished quilt. I measures 15 x 17.5 inches.

Here's how it looks from the back.

Here’s a closer look at the stitching.

And now, it is hanging with the watercolor cabin that Mermie painted.

I consider myself fortunate to have some of these treasures from family members who passed on long ago. If you’re a regular reader, then you know some of my other projects have been made with bits and pieces of handwork from my mother and my grandmother, and it feels a privilege to “visit” with them and collaborate on these projects. I never had a chance to sit and make quilts with my grandmother. She was long gone by the time I learned to quilt. I never had a chance to sit and do embroidery with my mother. She'd abandoned embroidery in favor of garment sewing by the time I started stitching in earnest. Certainly, I never had a chance to paint watercolors with Mermie. But when I work on these kinds of projects, it somehow feels as if I’ve had a little taste of what that might have been like.

Thanks for visiting today. I hope you like my quilt.