In my quest for new coasters, I stumbled upon an old favourite: a Sashiko embroidered piece from years ago. The charm of this Japanese embroidery technique, especially the captivating geometric designs of the Hitomezashi style with its square grid, had me intrigued. And conveniently, I had all the supplies at home. That’s when it hit me – what better way to kick off this blog than with a simple and beginner-friendly project? Thus, the decision was made: I’m crafting more Sashiko coasters.
Tools and Materials
You don’t need much to start: a non-stretchy fabric, embroidery thread and simple sewing tools. There are special threads and tools especially for Sashiko if you want to go traditional and authentic. But in my opinion, it is not necessary. If you’re only starting to explore the Sashiko embroidery style now, you can use what you have at home or what you can find in your local craft store.
So you will need the following:
- Square grid sheet of paper to sketch your pattern
- Fabric: not stretchy, woven (eg. simple cotton or linen)
- A ruler or a plastic mesh canvas sheet to help draw the grid
- Some kind of pen to transfer the grid onto the fabric: gel pen / fine marker / chalk fabric marker / water soluble marker / white pencil
- Embroidery thread: twisted perle is better than stranded
- Needle: preferably a longer one
- Sewing thread: in matching colour to the fabric to sew the coaster together in the end
Instructions
1. Choose a pattern
- Decide on the size of your coasters. My suggestion is to stay around 10 cm / 4 inches.
- Find a pattern that you like. You can see the ones I tried here: Sashiko Hitomezashi patterns
- Take a square-gridded paper and draw out your pattern. This step is useful for understanding the pattern and deciding on its placement, which part do you want to put at the edges or in the middle of your coaster.
2. Prepare the materials
- Cut the fabric into handleable-sized squares.
- For one coaster, you will need at least two plies, but if the fabric is thin it is better to cut 3.
- Make sure that the squares are a little bit bigger than your pattern to leave some sewing allowance.
- And iron the fabrics. It will be easier to handle and transfer the grid onto them.
3. Transfer the grid onto the fabric
This is probably the most tedious part of this project.
- I prefer to draw a dotted grid with the help of a plastic mesh sheet. Making a dot at the same corner of each square. I used a fine gel tip pen on the lighter-coloured fabrics and a white pencil on the darker ones. But be careful if your pattern doesn’t cover all the corners of the grid then you will be left with some visible dots.
- The other way is to draw the full grid with a ruler. This is better to be done with a water-soluble marker or with other erasable methods.
Tips:
- Be careful if you plan to wash your embroidered product and you’ve used a natural fibre fabric. Wash the fabric before starting the project to prevent shrinkage of the already embroidered piece that will ruin the pattern.
- When drawing the grid, try to follow the weave of the fabric. It will be easier to stitch more precisely.
- Double-check if you have the same size grid on your fabric then on your pattern. It will be troublesome if you’ve missed a square and only realised it halfway into the pattern.
4. Start stitching
- In Sashiko Hitomezashi we stitch from right to left. (If you’re left-handed then from left to right. Please invert everything from now on.) So, your starting point is the top right corner of the pattern.
- We will use a single thread of the twisted embroidery thread.
- If you prefer then you can tie a knot at the end but it is not necessary, the pattern will be secure enough without it.
- On the first go, we will stitch all the horizontal lines in the first row with simple running stitches. In sashiko, it is preferred to stitch more at once by moving the fabric around the needle. That’s why you don’t need an embroidery hoop it would be quite hard to use one.
- At the end of the first row, we simply turn around and stitch the horizontal lines in the second one. Here you should rotate the fabric upside down and still stitch the same way, from right to left.
- Try to keep an even tension of the thread don’t pull it too tight and don’t let it too loose either. After a few rows try to even it out by pulling on the fabric from multiple directions.
- And we go on like this until we’re done with all the horizontal lines.
- When you run out of thread, finish at the end of a row, and start the next one with a new thread.
- Next, we are going to stitch the vertical lines. It is entirely the same process, just rotate your fabric 90 degrees, and now you need to stitch horizontal lines again. But don’t forget to rotate your pattern in the same manner as well.
- Instead of a knot, I try to weave the loose thread backwards under the stitches.
- There are some patterns where the vertical lines go under the horizontal ones, interlocking with them on the top of the fabric and not stitched at every corner of the grid. And there are some patterns that require diagonal lines as well.
- Try to stitch precisely on your grid and match your previous stitches especially if your pattern contains 90-degree angles. A little deviation won’t be visible in the end but the more precise the better in the case of these patterns.
5. Sewing the coasters together
For this step, it is easier to use a sewing machine, but it can also be done by hand-sewing, again with simple running stitches.
- Take the other fabric that will be the bottom of the coaster and put the embroidered fabric on top of it, upside down, so that the right sides will face each other.
- If your fabric is too thin, you can use a third layer of the same textile, or some kind of thin filler to make the coaster a bit thicker. Make sure to put the filler material at the bottom layer of the pile. So when we turn it inside out, it becomes the middle layer.
- Now, let’s sew around the embroidery, very close to the edge or right on top of it. Leave a small section open at one of the sides.
- Cut the excess fabric and cut it diagonally at the corners.
- And turn the whole thing inside out.
- Sew in the little hole as well. I prefer to sew it by hand, this way it’s going to be less visible.
- And voilá, we are done.
