The strategy certainly worked, because on Wednesday June 20, the Japanese team made history by winning their first match in the tournament, beating the favourite in their group, Colombia, by 2 to 1. It was also the first time an Asian team had defeated a South American team in the men’s World Cup. In this case a win for the Japanese soccer is also a win for Watts Sashiko, because it has inspired me to get writing again.  

So I’ll keep this short and sweet for now, but I promise to be back again soon!  ​

Most of the patterns were familiar, as I had seen them before in various forms in other sashiko books, but I did find  a couple that were completely new to me.  
 
One was Roku Yata goshi (Roku Yata lattice), so-called because it was used on the costume of a popular kabuki actor in the early 19th century when he played the role of a samurai called Roku Yata, and the pattern became hugely fashionable.  ​

The helpful manager in TRY6 gave me a tip about another gallery he thought might have some sashiko, and sure enough when I reached the galerie arbre, I discovered the work of two more sashikoists. 
​Kogin mameco, the needle name of a lady who specializes in kogin sashiko, had a lovely range of book covers, zip pouches and pencil cases on display. Once again, however, I couldn’t resist the brooches, and purchased a sweet button-sized brooch covered in a rough-weave beige cloth stitched with a red ume no hana (plum flower). See Kogin mameco’s work here.

Hitomezashi and kogin sashiko are currently extremely popular in Japan, so I was not surprised that all the sashiko I had found so far was exclusively in those two styles. The sashikoist known as harinoto, who lives in Tochigi prefecture (which is not Tohoku) and whose work I also discovered in galerie arbre, however, was doing something quite original with kogin. Harinoto had made a series of coasters representing the six prefectures in Tohoku, stitched with a kogin-style motif emblematic of each prefecture. These were apples for Aomori, iron tea-pots for Iwate, woven straw horses for Akita, wooden kokeshi dolls for Miyagi, cherries for Yamagata, and toy red cows for Fukushima. Naturally I bought a kokeshi doll coaster as a souvenir of my visit to Miyagi.  

​​New years greetings and best wishes for happy stitching in 2018!
 
I love the beginning of a new year, when anything still seems possible. This year I am especially excited to be starting the year with my Watts Sashiko website. I’d dreamed of making this happen for a long time and was thrilled last year to finally get started. There are still many refinements to make and projects to get started, but little by little I’m moving forward. Please sign up for the newsletter if you’d like to get monthly updates of my progress.
 
I’m thrilled to be starting on the next phase of my vision – the subscription kits. Kits were very important to me when I first started sashiko, as I had no one to consult or teach me (in pre-internet days), but finding and choosing them was always a random process, and I was often confused by the instructions. That experience led me to the idea of offering subscription sets. If I can deliver a short series of kits in a particular style, with instructions translated by me, and subscribers can share that experience with each other, then overall it should add up to a fun and informative experience of learning about sashiko.

So for my first offering I have three special order Hitomezashi (‘one stitch’) kits from Olympus, which you won’t find available anywhere else on the internet. Hitomezashi is typical of Shonai sashiko one of the three major sashiko styles. ​The deadline for ordering this series is January 15th.

She became aware of the beauty of sashiko about twenty years ago, and although not very skilful at sewing or craftwork herself, bought some kits to try it. A turning point came, however, in 2015 when she became ill and couldn’t work as a translator for six months. While resting at home she began doing sashiko again and became completely absorbed by it, even starting to make her own pieces instead of using kits. “It was so soothing, and satisfying. I found that even a clumsy sewer like myself could still make things easily and enjoy it,” she recalls. 

Alison turned the experience of being ill into an opportunity to change her life. She began pursuing her passion for sashiko when she recovered, by joining a sashiko group in the town, and starting up a website and blog. This month she opened an online shop on her website, which is selling sashiko kits sourced from a Nagoya-based craft company. The kits contain English instructions she translated herself.  
“Sashiko is growing in popularity as it becomes more and more widely known overseas,” says Alison who senses a need for more literature in English, as there is very little available. 

“I think it’s because sashiko is beautiful and easy to do. It’s a craft that anybody can enjoy. You don’t need to be an expert sewer,” she says. 
​
Alison Watts. Born in South Australia, October 1963. A literary translator by trade, she has translated Durian Sukegawa’s novel An (English title: Sweet Bean Paste). She also produces poetry and music concerts, and in February produced a concert in Tokai-mura to mark the sixth anniversary of the 2011 disasters. The concert featured Durian Sukegawa’s performance of “A New Road to the Far North,” the record of a journey he undertook six years ago by bicycle, travelling in the footsteps of poet Matsuo Basho and measuring radiation along the way in disaster-ravaged areas.  ​