Category: Good things

Sashiko Stitching and Embellishing Clothes

Summer is the time I break out the maker side projects, and often they are textile-related. Last year I made t-shirt yarn and braided rugs, and this year I’m improving my hand stitching. On the weekend I started with repairing a hole in a pair of Boris’ shorts using a piece of fabric and a straight stitch. I love how it turned out. The sugar skull fabric is the same one I used to make him a laptop case for Christmas.

Making the patch was a good warm up for getting back into Sashiko stitching, and it led me to finally get started on a project I’ve had in mind for months. I kept putting off starting it because I felt intimidated, but now I am OBSESSED!

Starting a sashiko stitching project

I have this plain black skirt I bought more than fifteen years ago at a second-hand store in Halifax. I thought it would be interesting to embellish it with stitching. I am making up the design as I go along, working with various sized circles and red thread.

Starting a new sashiko stitching project

It’s going well so far, but I have a lot of work ahead of me because I want to embellish the entire bottom edge. I can hardly wait to finish and wear this! I have a feeling many more pieces of clothing are going to end up with decorative sashiko stitches.

Designed to Speak

Designed to Speak is an outlet of inspiration for designers and design enthusiasts profiling creative people of all disciplines with the objective to help inspire and engage the design community. I did this interview all the way back in April 2014 with Trevor Jansen and Mahyar Saeedi. I was asked to share my thoughts on making by hand and technology.

Designed To Speak – Rachael Ashe from Designed to Speak on Vimeo.

It was filmed on location at Hot Art Wet City during a group show I curated called, Voices From Another Room. In the background you can see work by Sarah Gee Miller, Joseph Wu, Connie Sabo, Alison Woodward, and me.

Watch more Designed to Speak interviews on the website.

Stone Soup and Creative Mornings Vancouver

Trevor Jansen is a long time volunteer with Creative Mornings Vancouver, and he has created many wonderful pieces of video content for the organization over the years. At the recent CMvan event at the beginning of July he premiered his latest video project inspired by the story of Stone Soup as told by some of the past speakers. It was an honour to be included in this group of people, and to get to tell a small part of the story. I discovered it is harder than it looks to say a single line and do multiple takes.

Go check out Trevor’s blog post to see the video of behind the scenes and outtakes. 

Scenes from a July Long Weekend on Bowen Island

Boris and I were on a much needed vacation last week. We left town on the previous Thursday night to start the July long weekend on Bowen Island with friends and family. We did the usual things when we are on the island, walking, reading, eating, and napping. It was glorious.

July long weekend on Bowen Island

The Elephant Tree

July long weekend on Bowen Island

July long weekend on Bowen Island

The flooded wetland that used to be a forest, near the beaver dam.

July long weekend on Bowen Island

Water plants on Killarney Lake

July long weekend on Bowen Island

A small group of friends joined us on Bowen for the day last Sunday for an open house hosted by Boris’ parents. It was lovely to take them on a long walk through the forest and introduce them to the magic that is walking out into Killarney Lake along the Secret Log. It’s really at its best at this time of year.

Inspiration in the Garden

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Crocosmia

Yucca flowers in the rain

There are so many beautiful flowers and plants to see in the gardens around our neighbourhood. The Gazania flower (at the top of this post) is the latest addition to our community garden plot. 

Poppies Take Over in the Garden

Last year in mid-summer I planted a packet of poppy seeds in our community garden plot, and then in the fall I scattered an expired packet of what was supposed to be wildflower seeds in another section. All these many months later and the poppies have taken over the garden. The wildflowers mix only resulted in poppies, but maybe because they were the only seeds still viable.

Poppies in my garden plot

The white with pink edge types are came from the seeds planted mid-summer, while every type and colour is coming up from the wildflower mix. Poppies are a favourite flower of mine, so I am constantly visiting the garden to see them. I am pleased to have poppies of my own after years of admiring them in other people’s gardens around the neighbourhood.

Poppies in my garden plot

Poppies in my garden plot

I am inspired and energized by my plant projects in the garden and at home. I never thought of myself as a plant person, but I sure am now.

Work In Progress Website

You may notice changes and broken things around here over the next few weeks (hopefully less). Boris and I are currently messing around with my website as we merge the portfolio and blog. I’ve been running my portfolio on Behance Pro Site for the past couple of years, and as their service is about to be discontinued I am moving everything to WordPress and making changes to the template and structure. Fun times!

Things are a little bit broken in the meantime as I slowly get it all sorted out.

Putting Sashiko Stitching To Work

At sewing bee yesterday evening I completed my first successful sashiko repair. I started it on Sunday evening and set it aside after getting frustrated. The hole is located on the inner thigh of my jeans, which made for an extremely awkward location to maneuver tiny stitches and a large needle. But I made it to the end, and now the jeans won’t end up with an even larger hole.

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Towards the end of the workshop the other weekend, our teacher told us she keeps her sashiko supplies separate from her other sewing materials. I was inspired to finally invest in one of the metal pencil boxes made by Danica Studio, and sold at Welk’s (home of many irresistable products) as a container to hold mine. Look how cute it is! I want to stitch something all the time now.

Revisiting Sashiko Stitching with The Craft Lab

On the weekend I attended another Sashiko Stitching workshop taught by Heather Young of the Craft Lab, this time at Collage Collage. A lot of time has passed since the first workshop at Opus, and I wasn’t feeling like I had a full grasp of the technique, which is why I enrolled in this longer, more in-depth class. Now I think I’ve got it, and I have a clearer idea of what I want to do.

We did two projects in the class, both of which are pictured here. We did a sampler to practice making the stitches in straight lines, and then we had to come up with our own design in a circle to make a small pot holder. I ran out of time before getting to try a repair on a piece of clothing I brought with me. I took a photo of Heather’s sampler (below) to remind myself of the different ways to approach a visible repair. I’m going to try one of these on my favourite jeans.

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I’m committed to doing more with sashiko stitching going forward, and even put my supplies together in their own little container.

An Update on Spring Blooms

This spring season has been as wet as last year was dry. It’s been a downer on my mood in the short term, but I hope it ensures we’re safe from a long dry summer.

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Delicate white magnolias

Tiny pink blossoms

The flowering trees keep doing their thing, rain or shine. I admire them for that. As always, they are the best thing about spring in Vancouver.