What is Boro Sashiko?
Sashiko is a Japanese running stitch, usually seen as white cotton on indigo fabric; either in straight lines or as a pattern.
Boro Sashiko is sashiko stitching used to mend clothing. Over time, as an item of clothing is mended many times, the effect can be quite beautiful and always unique.
The reason I like Boro Sashiko so much is because it pretty much doesn’t matter what you do or even your skill level, your project always comes out looking beautiful and unique.
My Process
In short, my process has been about experimenting with different fibres and tools, to see if I can create sashiko garments by machine, rather than by hand. I have already made several Haori by hand and it is very time consuming.
Bobbin Work
One little known fact is that you can put quite thick threads, yarn and ribbons through a bobbin and they will appear on the underside of fabric; so all you have to do is sew upside down! If you are going to try this, it is a good idea to use a second bobbin as you will need to dramatically adjust its tension. This means that you won’t need to spend a lot of time adjusting it back. The bobbin below has crochet cotton which is probably the equivalent of 3wt.
I started out by attaching fabric scraps to a thrifted denim shirt, using applique fusible webbing. I later just used a glue stick, as it was quicker, more economical and worked just as well.
I then used a fabric pen ( but you could probably use any water soluble pen or pencil) to place the pattern I wanted to follow on the underside of the shirt. I have a heap of sashiko templates, but I could have just as easily printed out a pattern and used my iron-on transfer pen to transfer the pattern.
Before I started, I needed to get the bobbin tension right, so I stitched a series of lines on another section of shirt.
You can see that the effect is nearly Sashiko, but probably closer to cording, where you sew down thicker thread. Some newer machines have a stitch that combines a triple straight stitch and a single straight stitch. However, I have an old mechanical, so my choices are cording or bobbin work.
The other thing I have is a Bernina Cordonnet foot. This can be used for cording and has a gap underneath which can accommodate the thicker bobbin thread. I haven’t tried a normal foot, but it would probably be fine. Once I was happy with the bobbin tension, I went ahead and sewed around my pattern.
The outcome was not too bad, but I did have to do some serious mending. In future, I am only going to use this for very simple patterns and straight lines. Where the threads cross over in the middle of the stars, I have actually had to cut out the centre and stitch them down. I have also had to extensively re-enforce other areas. For sashiko on block colours, this is probably worth the effort, as the pattern would stand out. I don’t think I could get the same effect with cording.
Step in Babylock Sashiko machine!
I regularly scour ebay, gumtree and facebook marketplace, looking for a Babylock Sashiko machine. They stopped importing them into Australia years ago. A few weeks ago, I got lucky and purchased a second-hand machine.
Thread Weights?
Since then, I have been experimenting with weight of thread that I can use. It is calibrated for 30-50 wt polyester thread and sews these without missing a beat. I did see a post about someone using 12wt thread, by adjusting the bobbin tension, so I embarked on a journey of discovery, to find the maximum thickness of thread I could use.
The main problem, I discovered, is that measuring thread thickness by weight is not the best or most accurate way to go. So get this, a thread is labeled 40 wt. when 40 kilometers of that thread weighs 1 kilogram. This does not include the ply of the thread. So 40 km of 1 ply thread could weigh 1kg; which may not be very thick, but thicker than 100wt 1-ply thread. I hope this makes sense. In some parts of the world, the measurement will also indicate how many strands are twisted together (ply). There is a new system using tex, but it still does not indicate diameter. So, the long and the short is that the wt will give some indication of thickness or diameter of thread, but you really need to eyeball it and try it to see if it will work. So far, I have tried the following threads with mixed results:
- Gutermann Sew-All 100% Polyester Thread – this does not actually indicate thread wt and on their website is says thickness no 100, but I think I read somewhere that it is 40-50wt. This is the wt that the machine is calibrated for and does not need any adjustment to the bobbin tension. It sews beautifully.
- Gutermann Extra Strong M 782 100% Polyester Thread – again, no indication of wt but on their website is says thickness no. 40 and may be 30-40wt? I managed to get this to work, but it took hours of playing with the tension. There seemed to be a bit of luck involved as sometimes I could sew continuously for a long time and other times it jammed after 10-20cm. The effect was worth it as it looks very close to hand sewn sashiko.
- Gutermann 100% Polyester Topstitch Thread – on their website, it says that it is thickness no. 30, which makes it thicker than Extra Strong. This may be their version of 20wt? I could not get this to work, no matter what tension I used.
- Wonderfil 12wt Cotton – I could not get this to work, no matter what tension I used.
- Wonderfil 50wt Cotton – this was included with the machine. It sewed ok but kept breaking. I wasn’t happy with the effect either.
- Wonderfil Designer polyester 40wt All-Purpose Thread –
Sashiko Patterns on Wash-away Stabilizer
So now I wanted to sew a sashiko pattern over the top of my patterned and stuck on fabric scraps. To do this, I decided to draw the pattern on wash-away stabilizer (which will wash away) and then pin it to my shirt for sewing. Again, I used my sashiko templates but I could have just have easily printed a pattern out and used a light box to trace them onto my stabilizer; similar to transferring patterns for embroidery.
I then sewed around my pattern using the 50wt cotton that I had. The Babylock Sashiko machine allows you to adjust the foot pressure and set it for sewing curves, which meant I didn’t have to put the foot up and down continuously around tight curves.
Although, the process of using the stabilizer worked, I was not happy with the results when sewing onto printed fabrics, as I couldn’t tell that there was even a pattern. In future, I will stick to block colours, so that the pattern stands out and does not disappear into the print. Having said that, I plan on trying out some couching using the Sashiko machine, so I will just trace over these now.
Couching with the Sashiko Machine
Using the stitches of my Babylock Sashiko machine on pattered fabrics was not very effective. However, you can also use the machine for couching thicker threads. Watch this video to see how it is done.
The day before, I was in an OP shop and got my hands on this little beauty; I just love the randomness of thrift shop finds.
Again, I used wash-away stabilizer, to trace around the pattern.
I also hand-stitched the pattern at the top. I was very pleased with the results and the finished texture.
Higher Density Sashiko Stitching Results
After the unsatisfactory results achieved with low-density stitching to a pattern, I decided to go with boro stitching, which should look like visible mending; with a much higher stitch density. I paired this with highlighting the spaces between a chrysanthemum image and following the line of the image.
I was quite pleased with the result and I think I could have gone even denser, but I am still getting used to the machine. You may be able to tell that I had troubles knowing where to cut the tails underneath and have actually cut through some stitches instead. Next time I will be a bit more systematic and try to stitch lines next to each other and stop after three or four to cut tails. Overall, I’m glad I have a Sashiko machine and am not doing this by hand.
The Arms Challenge
To complete the arms, I ripped and unpicked the seams and removed the cuffs.
I then decided to expand the arms to be more like a jacket, rather than a shirt with cuffs. I did this by adding calico. Again, the beauty of Boro is that it is very forgiving of visible mending.
I started stitching the arms, starting at the shoulders. As it was too difficult to manipulate with my machine, I decided to stitch by hand. I did this as far down as short sleaves before using the machine was more practical.
Once both sleaves were complete, I even used the Sashiko machine to sew the seams.
The Collar
I decided that I wanted the collar to stand out, so I did some dense sashiko stitching for the collar. When I tried the jacket on, it turned out a bit and I could see the denim lining the inside, so I decided to add some dense sashiko stitching as a feature.
I also added more fabric to the inside opening.
Tidying up
The Sashiko machine leaves a lot of thread tails on the underside of fabric. Being a bit lazy, I didn’t remove these as I went. These eventually became entangled and a bit messy. I saw a youtube video where a hair clipper was used to shave down carpet threads and I thought that I could probably do something similar. I discovered that this worked well for removing thread tails.
Actually, this jacket may even work as a reversible jacket!
The Finished Product
Glen’s Version
This was created by the other half of Bespoke blokes, Glen. This was all done by hand.
