Tuesday 17 February 2015

A handy cutting mat - for marking sashiko






Last Sunday, I was with the Dundee branch of the Embroiderers' Guild for a sashiko kinchaku bag workshop.  They did some lovely stitching although I didn't manage to get any photos - hopefully some of them will send me pics of their finished bags!

One of the group had a very interesting A3 cutting mat for marking her grids.  After class, I went to the Range, a nearby craft/home emporium that I somehow hadn't discovered yet, and bought the A5 version of the same mat.  What's so great about it? The mat has metric markings on one side and imperial on the other and the imperial markings, on all sizes of the mat, are a continuous quarter inch grid.  While this might be a bit confusing to use as a patchwork cutting mat (too many lines to follow easily) it is ideal for marking the quarter inch grids we use for many hitomezashi (one stitch) sashiko patterns, like most of these designs (stitched by a member of the Loch Lomond sashiko course group).  You can buy them online here - the metric side is shown in the photo - or use the store finder to locate a branch near you (they seem to be all over the UK).



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