December 2017 - Upcycle Stitches

A Happy Sashiko New Year of 2018 | Sashiko Updates

12/31/201701/13/2018 atsushijp Leave a comment

A Happy New Year! I hope 2018 will be another Happy Sashiko New Year for you.

We started the business activity of Upcycle Stitches in 2017. It was the eventful year to introduce what we do; Sashiko. We sincerely hope that the year of 2018 will be the year of enriching the contents of our website, online tutorials, and shopping opportunities. Your feedback, requests, and questions are always welcome. They motivate me to do more.

Here are some updates on the last day of 2017 & the first day of 2018.

Workshop Updates! Happening Soon. Don’t miss it.

Our Sashiko Workshop in NYC is coming up soon. It is on January 13th & 14th.

We can offer workshops only a few times a year. For this time, we got lucky to be able to offer the workshops so close to the previous workshop. Please consider to join this rare opportunity to learn Sashiko essentials from Sashiko expert. It can be a great gift for someone & yourself to start the year of 2018 with Sashiko.

Register & Purchase your seat here.

A few simple website for easy understanding & Smartphone

We are working on explaining & introducing what Sashiko & Boro are throughout our website as well as Youtube Channel.

As one of our promotions, we created a few single-page website for easy reading on Smartphones.

Boro Studio:

Sashiko Workshop:

Sashiko Lab:

Sashiko Tutorial

Happy New Year Sale on Etsy

We intend to keep listing our “one-of-a-kind” products in our Etsy Store.

As the sign of appreciation for 2017 & excitement for Happy Sashiko New Year 2018, we run a sale promotion of 10% off for our Sashiko Fabric products. As you may know, we rarely have a discount on our products. Don’t miss this opportunity!

First Give Away Challange.

At last, we started a trial version of our “First Give Away” challenge on Facebook Page.

On our Facebook Page, you would simply need to “share” the assigned post & mention your friend name who may be interested in Sashiko. When your friend like our Upcycle Stitches FB page, you & your friends will be qualified in a drawing on 1/19. 1 skein of Sashiko Thread (Original White or Bright White)” which is $15.00 value with shipping, will be given away!

An exciting Happy Sashiko New Year

We will keep introducing Sashko & Planning a lot of fun & enjoyable activities. Get involved to our Sashiko community & enjoy Sashiko in 2018!

A Happy New Year!

Sashiko Thread Sample Booklet | All Natural Dye

12/22/201712/22/2017 atsushijp Leave a comment

Sashi.Co & Keiko Futatsuya has been producing the Natural Dye Sashiko Thread for almost 3 years. We receive many positive reviews, and we are confident in what we make. At the same time, we receive many requests to provide a color sample for our Natural Dye Sashiko Thread Collection. Finally, I made several of Sashiko Thread sample Booklets. They are available online now! ~ Sashiko Thread Sample Booklet | All Natural Dye.

Sashiko Thread Sample Booklet

A price for the Sashiko Thread Sample Booklet is $20.00 !?

I set a price of $20.00 for the booklet. I know. It is expensive for a hand-made booklet.

The booklet itself doesn’t look like the one with $20.00 value. It is hand-made and we use all the Natural Dye thread so I hope it doesn’t sound like I am ripping you off. By its look, I would say $5.00 ~ $10.00 would be a reasonable pricing.

Then, why did I set up this pricing?

The answer is that I would like to sell (give) this booklet to someone who sincerely appreciates this booklet. Once I made the sample. In past, I have spread the Sashiko Sample Booklet to many people, pretty much everyone who wanted to have. It sold out very quickly, and I needed to ask customers to wait. One day, I found a sample booklet in a trash can…

Ideally speaking, I even would like to give away it free. It is my pleasure to share our Natural Dye Sashiko thread; what we are proud of.

After thinking a lot of the issues, I come up with the idea. I hope this deal makes sense to you.

Here is a deal I come up with.

We will not reimburse it and more

I will send you $39.00 store credit when the booklet holder purchases more than 15 skeins of our Natural Dye Sashiko thread in their life-time history. When I receive the order of this booklet, I will write down your name, and you will be eligible for the deal.

No need to purchase 15 skeins at once. I will send you the credit when you purchase the 15th thread. It can be anytime, even a few years later. No expiration date. I will count every purchase you made in past if you have already made a purchase from us.

We will reimburse the price of $20.00

After that, you will get $19 discount when you purchase more than 15 skeins of Natural Dye Sashiko Thread.

I hope this deal will make sense to you.

On top of this, Sashiko Thread Sample Booklet is a great sample book to keep in your drawer if you are in love with Natural Colors. With almost 50 colors we have created, we want you to get the color your project deserves!

Thank you!

Sashiko Workshop Basic & Core in January 2018

12/20/201701/15/2018 atsushijp 1 Comment

I am happy to announce that I can offer another opportunity for Sashiko Workshop Basic & Core on January 13th & 14th in 2018.

In spite of many requests offer Sashiko workshop again, I thought I only could offer it in March at the earliest time. It is very fortunate for me (& anyone interested in Sashiko Workshop) to be able to offer the workshop in Tribeca, New York. Please consider participating our Sashiko workshop on this rare occasion. I usually offer Sashiko workshops 3 ~ 4 times a year. Don’t miss it!

Purchase your seat online

It is difficult to be in NYC on January 13th or 14th…? Please check our “Sashiko Workshop Schedule 2018” for other opportunities to meet/see us.

What you can expect in Sashiko Workshop Basic & Core

You will learn how to enjoy Sashiko Stitching from an actual Sashiko Artist. Since we started introducing our Sashiko techniques in 2012, some of the technique you will learn will widen your hand-sewing possibilities.

I created a landing webpage for our Sashiko Workshops. It summarizes what we do.

As I repeat saying this, there is no such a thing as “rule” in Sashiko Stitching.

There are, however, the technique and procedures which maximize the Sashiko stitching in terms of productivity, the beautiful result, and efficiency. We would like to share how we enjoy our Sashiko so that you will enjoy Sashiko more.

The Sashiko Workshop Basic & Core is the best way to start & re-learn what Sashiko is.

Happy Voices from the graduates

Since I made the workshop registration pages a few weeks ago, we haven’t received many reviews… However, we got all “hand-writing” good reviews and also great 2 online reviews. Here are some happy voices cited from online reviews. Thank you for those who left the reviews!

This was a great foundation for Sashiko beginners (techniques and a bit of history and purpose as well. Atsushi is warm, humorous and knows his stuff.

I really enjoyed the class. Atsushi was an excellent instructor. He demonstrated the proper technique and gave a lot of encouraging feedback on how we could improve or make the process even more efficient and comfortable.

Sashiko is fun way to appreciate fabric & mindful time

Our goal is to introduce what Sashiko is and pass it down to next generation. The more people enjoy Sashiko, the bigger chance we have to pass it down to our children & their children. Hand-sewing and appreciation to what we have is our foundation as a human being, I believe.

I hope to meet & see you in New York!

Japanese Traditional Boro | We Revive them

12/10/201705/24/2018 atsushijp Leave a comment

“Boro (襤褸)” means a piece of ragged cloth in Japanese. Recently, with spreading a word & culture of “Boro” spreading to the world, the word itself starts having other meaning besides simply “ragged cloth.” I enjoy the various interpretation of the culture of Boro and many Boro-inspired art-works. I appreciate the beauty of contemporary Boro culture. However, as a group of Sashiko artists, we would like to introduce how the Japanese Traditional Boro look like.

Not only patchwork. A result of repetitive repairing.

Boro is not only about patchworking small swatches of fabric into one art. The big difference from the western patchwork art is that the main purpose of the project was repairing the torn fabric.

Some of the Boro we can find in the antique market is too fragile to use. We have experienced a valuable piece of Boro “washed away” in hand-washing process. Therefore, we understand that some of the Boro pieces should be kept in the museum or other exhibition facilities.

However, what we would like to pass down to the next generation is not only the beautiful pieces of Boro but also the culture of Boro including how to make these. We continuously search for a good piece of Boro, wash them carefully with expecting some damages and loss, then patch them together to revive the fabric. As exactly the Japanese a few hundred years ago performed, we make the Boro fabric.

Our Boro arts are “clean” and “usable” in your daily life.

We use the Boro, then we repair it. The repetitive repairing makes the authentic Japanese traditional fabric.

Boro from Japanese Tradition

At Random Beauty in Japanese Traditional Boro?

Some people say that the beauty in Boro is a product of at random repairing & mending. Is that really so? We do not agree with that. It is true that the Japanese did not have enough fabric to create a new jacket or a blanket. They had to repair a hole or torn part by using other old fabrics.

However, if they didn’t care about beauty or artistic perspective of Boro, why did they patch only one type of fabric? I believe that they tried to be as fashionable as they can, in limited resources of fabrics.

It also reflects the interesting Japanese culture of shame. The Boro was a symbol of “poverty” and the Japanese felt shame on the patched Boro. With following this culture, our Boro Jacket has more patches inside of Jacket.

We try to follow the old traditional way of Boro making.

With understanding how the Japanese would think and repair, we believe we revive the fabric and Boros as the Japanese in the 18 century do in 2018.

The core of Boro | Appreciation.

Please understand that I am not criticizing the current movement of contemporary Boros. I enjoy watching many arts inspired by the Traditional Boro, and I get inspired by the Boros made in current society.

The core concept of Boro is appreciating what we have.

As long as we follow this core idea of Boro, the result of Boro (patchworking, repairing and quilting) can be in any form.

In this fast-paced society with mass production & mass consumption, appreciating the small piece of fabric is off the mainstream. It is time-consuming and not efficient.

However, I believe it would be nice to leave the culture of appreciation to fabric is a great gift we can leave to the next generation. In addition to the culture and beauty of repairing the fabric, if we can share how fun Sashiiko & Boro are in daily life, we can impact a bit to the current society to more sustainable society.

I want you to have the one in your home.

We sell the Japanese Traditional Boro for those who would like to have the actual Boro piece in your home. I believe our pricing is very reasonable for the authentic look Boro pieces. All the Boro pieces were made in 2017, with repairing and patchworking the severely damaged/torn small swatches of Boro with Sashiko.

They are available on our Etsy store. Please click the link below if you are interested.