I am so grateful Vancouver has Maiwa and their school of textiles because they manage to bring to town so many interesting and skilled artists from all over the world to do talks, teach workshops, and share their work. When I looked through their latest brochure earlier this year I knew I wanted to take a workshop, but it was a toss up between embroidery and learning something totally different. I went with a two day workshop on kumihimo with master artist Makiko Tada, simply because her work seemed so compelling.

Kumihimo is a braiding technique traditionally used as functional and decorative ties for samurai armour and swords, and in current day are used for tying obi and haori jackets. My hands-on experience in the workshop demonstrated to me that kumihimo is essentially small scale weaving, and can get incredibly complicated.

Some participants came to the workshop with their own marudai, which is a wooden stand, but everyone was given a foam disk marked with notches and numbers to work with. This was more my speed since I am not a weaver and many in the class were. Our first project was to work with four strands of yarn in two different colours to create the most basic of braids.

Our next project took things up a few levels as we worked with twenty-four strands of silk thread, divided into sections of three per notch and long enough to wind up into bobbins. That’s when things got really complicated as we quickly went through four different kumihimo patterns to try and master by the end of day one. Some I was able to get my head around and others were totally confusing. It’s hard to explain but you use both hands to braid and they  move around the disk in specific movements, usually in the opposite direction. My brain was totally exhausted by the end of day one, but I came back for more in day two.

Makiko also brought in many samples of a variety of different braids done in different fibres, and vibrant colours. It was inspiring.

Work by Makiko Tada

Work by Makiko Tada

Work by Makiko Tada

I completed three braids by end of day two that I am happy with, which are pictured below. I decided to stick with the simpler patterns and really get a handle on the technique because there was no way I was going to get my head around the five different designs we were shown. We were given beautiful supplies to take home for further work, along with two different disks to work with.

I’m glad I took this workshop because it was super challenging and different from most of the textile work I’ve learned so far. I’m not sure what I am going to do with this going forward but I definitely need more practice.

I bought this embroidery kit by Kiriki Press at the Paper Place when I was in Toronto earlier in the year. I loved the cute design and thought it would be a good practice project to brush up on my embroidery skills. But when I started working on it in July I was really frustrated by the small scale and having to follow a pattern. I set it aside for most of the summer and then decided to have another go at it this weekend.

I’d been lamenting my lack of productivity last week so I really wanted to work on something. I somehow managed to get past my frustrations with this kit when I took it out on Saturday, and made my way through all of the embroidery by mid-afternoon on Sunday. This was between going out for walks, naps, swimming at the beach, reading, and eating. I learned new stitches – the chain stitch and the ladder stitch – and fell in love with the little fox in the process.

The kit comes with a back piece and stuffing to turn the fox into a very cute little softie. She is about six inches high, and is a lovely addition to my small collection of handmade toys. The first I’ve made myself!

I look at this finished project sitting in our green chair and part of me can’t quite believe I am the one who made it. I finished stitching the sashiko design over the weekend and felt intimidated to tackle sewing it all together. I am much more comfortable with hand sewing over machine sewing, but I also needed to learn how to do an invisible seam. It’s something I had never done before but I found this helpful video to guide me.

Here’s the pillow after I sewed two of the sides on the sewing machine and was about the start using an invisible/ladder stitch to sew the whole thing closed over the pillow form.

When I was finished, I held the pillow over my head and did a victory lap around the apartment to celebrate. It felt like a HUGE accomplishment to make this simple object.

Now that this is done I am either going to tackle the embroidery kit I also bought in Toronto, or begin a new freeform stitching design on a piece of clothing.