This book is one of the latest in Nihon Vogue's 'best understood' craft book series, and it certainly makes the 36 different patterns, including four hitomezashi patterns, easy to follow. Starting with a handy pattern directory, which lists the patterns in order of drawing ease on the left hand page and the order of stitching on the right, there are thirteen pages with excellent step by step photographs taking you through all the steps from threading your needle to marking the patterns and stitching them. This is followed by excellent photos of the designs, with a full page spread on each individual pattern, with large diagrams.

'Ichiban yoku wakaru sashiko no kiso' (best understood sashiko basics) is  perfect for use with the plain hanafukin fabrics, or any of my other sashiko fabrics, and fine (4-ply or 3-ply) or medium (6-ply) sashiko threads. All the patterns are stitched as hanafukin cloths, in many colour combinations, and there are several cute bag and pochette patterns at the end of the book, plus a useful isometric graph paper page to help you draw isometric designs like karabana kikkou (flower hexagon).

The text, as you can see from the photos, is all in Japanese, but if you have done a little sashiko before you will find the diagrams very easy to follow. You can use phone apps like Google translate to scan and auto translate text too. Measurements are all in metric throughout.

Who would enjoy this book? If you want to learn how to draw and mark more sashiko patterns yourself, this would be a good book for you. It has more than a dozen patterns or patterns variations which are not included in The Ultimate Sashiko Sourcebook.

120 pages in full colour.
 
Size 26 x 21 x 1cm

Paperback

Publisher : Nihon Vogue