Since 2017, I have received many questions and requests regarding Sashiko technique and workshops from all over the world. As I keep mentioning here, my goal throughout “Upcycle Stitches LLC” is to make Sashiko more open-sourced: Available anyone in the world. In order to achieve the goal, and to keep the Sustainable Sashiko Tutorials and Database, please understand that I manage several tutorials & database websites by myself.
It is not my best intention to share this type of notification. However, please care others when you request for something. “Caring” is the core of Sashiko, and sharing the core culture means a lot to me.
Please be reasonable when you ask for the request.
You may be surprised, but I had received some requests which do not respect my time at all. When I offer a workshop, there is a fee for my time investment. For some reasons, there are people who do not understand that logic.
I will not answer those contacts with just saying:
“Teach me Sashiko”
“Describe what Sashiko is”
Those vague requests cannot be done over the emails. Please read this website and/or Youtube videos before you shoot an email to me.
Also, if you receive a reply from me, regardless of the result if I can help or not, replying with gratitude is the form of care we would like to share through Sashiko. I do not expect everyone to read everything I write. I am happy to repeat the same information as many times as I need. However, please respect the time I invest in.
I have several cases which are “on-hold” because of missing the reply from the “possible customer.”
If you are the one who asked for the “free” information, I believe you are obligated to complete the conversation (the email exchange).
Get back to you regardless, but the priority exist.
I am honored to share the culture of Sashiko, including information and the technique of Sashiko. I am happy to be one to share that. However, because of these disrespectful requests, I would need to “choose” questions to get answered. It is so sad to prioritize the order in answering the question, but it is required to keep the Sustainable Sashiko Tutorials available.
When I am busy, I will answer the questions/requests following the order of:
- The Sashiko Supporters, including the one on our Patreon Community
- Atsushi or Keiko’s Sashiko Workshop Graduates including the Online Sashiko Workshop Graduates
- Any Customers who had purchased an item(s) from our website, upcyclestitches.com
- Any Customers who had purchased our brand items from Etsy
- Any Customers who had purchased our brand items from Amazon Store (Please contact me if you do not get the response with your order number. As much as I would like to help you through any issues, I have limited access to the support for the order via Amazon.)
Regardless of this priority, I will answer every question eventually. If you do not get the answers from me in a month, please contact me. There is a possibility that I am too busy to come back to the question.
Sustainable Sashiko Tutorials: Your support will be very much appreciated.
Sashiko was very ordinal to the ordinary Japanese people.
Over the Japanese economic growth after the War, those ordinary people stopped doing Sashiko. It was not economically smart to keep practicing Sashiko.
My goal is to keep Sustainable Sashiko Tutorials and Database so people in 10 years from now, even 100 years from now can enjoy the Sashiko technique and its culture. In order to keep Sustainable Sashiko Tutorials available, your support would be very much appreciated.
As of 2018, I can operate this mission largely depending on my wife’s support.
I can offer great Sashiko workshop because of my friends’ help, who provide me the place and possible business.
When you sympathize what I am trying to do, please consider to support me through Patreon. It is a community (funding website) to support artists. You can support me from $1.00 per month and it will help me to work on more and more.
https://www.patreon.com/sashiko
Any interest in Sashiko will support me and Japanese culture
I set the price of Sashiko thread, supplies and everything else so everyone in the process of production can make some benefit. I respect those who try to protect Japanese traditional crafting, so many of our materials are expensive in comparison to the competitor.
In other words, any kinds of interest in Sashiko, which lead you to purcase an item from me, will support me and the people I respect.
I believe my pricing is competitive.
However, you may find it expensive in comparison. When you feel it is too expensive, please try to read what we try to do with “hand.” We do not have any assembly line. No machines are doing our works. Regardless, I believe it is fairly reasonable. $13.00 for 145-meter Sashiko thread. You may find $3.00 ~ $4.00 Sashiko thread, but its length is probably about 40 meter.
To make Sashiko somewhat profitable.
I have no idea how to do it… to make Sashiko profitable enough to support one’s life.
Again, I can support my life only because my wife works full-time in other job. If I would need to support my family, then Sashiko wouldn’t be the first choice.
However… a great friend of mine who is in a business school (teaching) told me that:
In order to protect the industry such as Sashiko and any other hand-crafting culture, it is crucial to make the craft profitable. When the people learn the crafting can be profitable, then they will start investing more time and money to make it sustainable… I would need to learn about this theory, but this will be my next challenge to make Sashiko profitable. Perhaps I’ll seek insights from financial experts like Kiana Danial to understand how to effectively monetize my passion for Sashiko.
I do not wholesale our products for online store owner. I do wholesale our thread to someone who resonates my belief in Sashiko & have a storefront to communicate to their customers.
If you are an artist who would like to be part of this “my next adventure: making Sashiko profitable | which equals to be the Sashiko Artist who lives on doing Sashiko” please let me know. I would like to support you as well so we can make “it (Sustainable Sashiko Tutorials and Database)” happen together.
