Hana Fukin

I started to title this One and Done. But now that I'm finished with my first (!) one, I don't know. Maybe I need one in my sewing box to keep me happy centered while watching the news.

How it started - washaway dots were printed on 1/2 of the length of cotton

Hana Fukin means Kitchen Cloth or Flower Cloth. It is a form of sashiko that I had not tried. It looks complex (to me) but is super simple - just the running stitch over and over again. Over and over and over again. Starting in different directions, and in different locations. Next time, I'll be a bit more deliberate. Oops! I said next time.

Finished and washed

According to the blog Zen Stitching, daughters from samurai families learned to sew Hana Fukin to acquire desirable mental attributes of perseverance and patience.

Certainly I am deficient in perseverance and patience. Or maybe I'm just too old to worry about desirable mental attributes any more. To be honest, I don't think I ever worried about it. But what a sweet idea.

Oh, and precision is a good idea, unlike my version of sashiko which is, shall we say, more free-spirited. At the end, as I usually do, I embraced my lack of precision and mine is random, or more precisely, full of mistakes. 

Almost finished!

I actually pulled some of it out as I made the mistakes. But then I decided, Nope. It is OK full of my mistakes. First off, I did not have and could not find very precise instructions - did I mention my lack of patience? I figured it out as I went along, and missed the mark a number of times. 

And now I like it. It feels nice and will feel nicer with use. 

It was fun to order the kit from Sashiko Lab in Japan. And it was fun to receive the little package. It came with a rectangular piece of navy blue (indigo?) cotton fabric containing a bit of starch. One half of it was lightly printed with white dots less than 1/4" apart. The dots guide the stitching and, depending on where you start and stop the running stitch, can produce an amazing array of designs.

First row of running stitches

The kit also contained the most lovely soft wonderful-to-stitch sashiko thread in medium brown. I'm so glad to have some remaining to use in other projects. I have since learned that Sashiko Lab also carries sashiko thread for left-handed stitchers. I guess it's twisted the other way???

There were also instructions in Japanese and a few tiny drawings of the beginning stitch order.

So maybe this is not one-and-done. Maybe I need to order another kit from Sashiko Lab when/if they become available again.