Japanese Stitch-a-Long, part 1

Hi everyone! How has it been another three weeks already??? After wrapping up the Swans last time (hooray!!!), I decided to work on a small project to get me in the mood for my upcoming trip to Japan. At just 54x54, this maneki-neko design fit the bill perfectly:

 

And, somehow, I got it done in three weeks.

Sadly, no, that's not bad lighting -- in the mediocre lighting I was stitching in one night, I grabbed THE WRONG COLOR FLOSS for the bottom half of the "WELCOME" text. I suppose the good news is that I never liked the text -- after all, the cat is really beckoning (maneki means "beckoning"), not necessarily welcoming or greeting. So I'm going to salvage the piece by eventually just turning this into a rectangle and cropping off the text. But first I need to figure out where I'm going to use it! (Next year I have an idea for a project to go through my completed pieces and figure out something to do with at least some of them!)

Now, for my next project ... I was going to work on an orphaned kit I picked up at a thrift store, but instead decided to open up a sashiko kit I bought earlier in the year. I've never done sashiko before, though I have always thought it looked great, and I wanted to try out the craft in case I need to pick up additional supplies on my trip!

I opened up the kit last night, and I'm happy to report that some of the instructions are indeed in English! This kit doesn't contain much of the "traditional" patterning, except the interlocking circles at the bottom.

As such, I don't know that I'm really doing "sashiko" -- which means "little stabs" -- because with the curved lines on the cherry blossoms I have to keep turning the fabric. And while I clearly need to work on making my stitch length more consistent.

More to come on this!

I love this stitch-a-long -- it's a lovely mix of motivation and inspiration! If you fancy joining in, visit Avis's blog (first on the list below) for more info. And if you just want to look and feel inspired by a wonderful range of projects, check out what my fellow stitchers are working on!

Avis, Claire, Gun, Carole, Sue, Constanze, Christina, Kathy, Margaret, Cindy, Helen, Linda, Heidi, Jackie, Hayley, Megan, Deborah, Clare, Mary Margaret, Renee, Jenny, Carmela, Jocelyn, and Sharon.

See you on September 1st for our next check-in!