Sashiko Design for the Quilt Guild Challenge

Several years ago I started a sashiko embroidery piece in a class with Sylvia Pippen.  Like a lot of my sewing, it got put away half-finished to be discovered at a far distant time.

I came across it and decided to finish it, as there wasn't very much more to do on it.  And as I was working on it, I realized that the pretty blue mottled fabric (in the center below) was very similar in color to our guild's challenge fabric for this year (the outer fabric below).

 I decided to frame it with the challenge fabric and finish up the wall hanging.  Dear Daughter-in-law-Stitches was visiting us, and since she has such a good artistic eye, I got her input on my borders.  We agreed that a thin white border and slightly bigger black border would work well inside the blue fabric.  The white brings out the white stitches, and the black helps "tame down" the brightness a bit.

This photo shows the fabric auditioning process.  

So I made the strip sets and sewed them onto the wall hanging to make a mitered border.

Here it's all laid out with the borders sewn on, ready to be mitered.

You can see a little bit of the diagonal line I drew to mark the 45 degree line, and then I added pins to stabilize it while I stitched it.

The front is finished!!  I did very minimal stitching on this, with a solid line 1/4" inside the white border, and some wavy stitching (#4 on the Bernina) in the outer blue border.  I may return to it and use blue thread to make a hand-quilted circle just outside the white embroidered circle.

Here it is all put together.  I debated about blue or black for the binding, but chose black to make a good stopping point for the eyes.  Now it is all ready!  I even have the label and hanging sleeve sewn on!!

Back To "Work"

I told you about breaking my arm/wrist previously here.

I'm happy to report that I've been improving a lot.  I now have a removable splint, which gives me more freedom to do things.  I've been going to physical therapy, and doing stretching exercises at home.  I still have a way to go till I have full mobility and strength, but I'm getting there.

I'll show you the before and after x-rays.

This is the original x-ray.  My arm is lying palm down on the table, and there's really not supposed to be a curve in the forearm like that!

This is the latest x-ray, after the second surgery.  Yes, sometimes once is not enough!  I can now call myself bionic, as I have a metal plate in my arm!  They told me it's not big enough to bother the airport metal detectors.

With all this improvement, I'm now able to sew on my machine.    A few things are difficult, such as changing the foot, because that's usually done with the left hand on my machine.  And my left hand doesn't bend like it's supposed to!  I'm really happy to be back sewing.  I tried a little crocheting, but that didn't work, as I needed to bend my left wrist too much and it was making it hurt. And today I tried some hand appliqué.  I thought I could do that because all my left hand has to do is hold the fabric, right?  Well, it does more than that, apparently.  I took four stitches, which were rather awkward to do, and they looked terrible.  So no, I'm not embroidering yet.

But soon.  I hope.