Hana Fukin Sashiko

Wanting to do something productive while wasting watching the TV at night, I decided that sashiko, a Japanese embroidery might be the ticket.  In the days before TV watching, well, folks used to be productive.  Men might carve wooden toys, spoons or bowls.  Women would sew or knit.  So, they would have to pay attention to what they were doing.  For me apparently, knitting and crocheting aren't mindless.  I have to concentrate.  That means I have to choose what to concentrate on.  But sashiko doesn't take much thought to do, once you put the pattern on your fabric.  Now, I am one of those people who is reluctant to throw something away, if it has faithfully performed its duty with style and maybe, is just a little worn out through use.  Hence, these lovely cotton dish cloths.  They were too thin to keep on using and people kept buying me new kitchen towels since I wouldn't quit using them.  And, it seems, well, silly so to buy throw away dusting cloths from the store.  So, I learned about hana fukin, Japanese kitchen cloths.  In the Japanese way of extreme thriftiness called shimatsu, items are reused, when no longer serving their original purpose.  In this instance, I folded the cloths in half, doubling their thickness and sewed them together.  Then, using a tin top, I traced intersecting semi circles to make these flowers.  Sewing the sashiko design went pretty fast.  Once again, my dishcloths have been recycled into pretty dust cloths.

My Mom used to be constantly in search of the most worn out t-shirts and pajamas because they made the softest dust cloths and wouldn't scratch the furniture.  I never understood why she prized her soft dust rags.  (Okay, she is the only person I ever knew who was obsessed with dusting).  She didn't sew her rags into hana fukin and I have never seen them in the houses of my Japanese aunts and uncles.  But, my grandmother died when my Mom and aunts were very young, so maybe this cultural practice wasn't passed down to them.  Sometimes, it is unspoken why people do the things they do.  (Another story is when my Mom would plant potatoes in the garden each year taking up the place where I wanted to grow tomatoes).  They just do things and we don't know why.  So, I think I will make more hana fukin.

My Little Shifuku

My sister invited me to a tea at her church on Saturday.  We are supposed to bring a teapot and cup.  After looking through my cabinets, we decided on this cute little square teapot.  I didn't have a good way to transport it several towns away so I decided to make a shifuku for it.  A shifuku is a little drawstring pouch made specifically for this purpose and many times for a specific object as in my case.

I thought the square shape would be a perfect choice for a first time try.  I spent some time (a good part of the day) yesterday thinking about how I would make said shifuku and looking up examples on the Internet (few and a book on how to make them cost $40 plus, I didn't have time to wait for the book).  Then, it was onto what fabric.  I bought some Japanese print fabric at Joann's and then looked at my fabric closet to see what would make a nice contrast and chose this green, vintage cotton plaid scrap dissected from a thrift store man's shirt.  As I make reversible bags, I followed the way I make those except with a few variations.  Firstly, The sides aren't sewn up all the way but about the bottom third of the finished bag (it is about half way up the bag before the bottom is squared up).  The top two thirds open up, so they had to be hand sewn together.  I used a thick poly batting between the inside and outside fabrics.  (I don't know what they used in the photos I saw online but their filling seemed much denser and packed tighter plus, the shifuku should be made of old silk but I didn't want to use silk on my first try.)  I didn't like how the teapot sat in it with the poly batting, as it seemed bulky and not level, so I took it apart.  Then, I racked my brain for any kind of scrap I might have around to make a hard and level bottom.



I didn't really want to use card board, and traditionally, a Japanese paper called washi would be folded up and used.  I didn't have any spare washi laying around and even, if I did, no way!  Washi is way too beautiful to hide away in the bottom of a bag.  So, I found last year's monthly datebook with a hard plastic cover and cannabalized it.   I wrapped some flatter, cotton batting around it, sewed the sides up, trimmed the excess and inserted it in the bottom of the outside bag.  It looked like this.



Then, I stuffed the batting in moving it around squaring it to the corners of the outer bag, put in the liner bag, doing the same thing and pinned it all up making sure that the little teapot was nice and snug in the bag.  In the Japanese versions, I am sure that the bottoms aren't made this way but that a fabric covered square or round is attached to bottom.



Then, I had to make little loops to sew into the top and inserted a drawstring and voila!  Here it is, my little shifuku.  I want to get some ceramic beads for the ends of the drawstrings to finish it unless I can find something around the house (hmm, I'm guessing I can as I write this but I just have to figure out where I might have put said beads).  I also practiced mottainai which I do anyway but I didn't know the Japanese word for it.  I read about it in this unbelievable magazine I bought at the San Jose Kinokuniya bookstore called Kateigaho.  Since, it was dark after I finished, the photo is a little yellow.  I'll post some more photos tomorrow, if I have time.