These little bundles of six sixteenths of a metre, 25 x 26cm approx., are perfect for mixing in with other scraps for a traditional boro inspired look. Fabrics are from Kaffe Fassett's shot cottons range for FreeSpirit fabrics. which are woven in India. 

We've had some amazing sunsets recently, and the old verse of 'Red sky at night, shepherds' delight' sprang to mind when I saw the amazing shot effects of the first two cottons shown - blue and pale green woven with vermillion and orange respectively. Wow! A 'Red sky in the morning, shepherd's warning' with a slightly different mixture to capture the colours of dramatic sunrises, will be listed soon.

I love the depth of colour in shot cottons fabrics, and they remind me very much of early C20th cotton kimono linings, where deep blues, greys, and browns were used for men's kimono, with brighter and bolder colours popular for young women's wear, but also the colour effects seen in meisen silk kimono, flat weave fabrics with ikat and shot weave effects, often in brilliant colours, which were the fashion kimono of the day for young women.

Compared with sashiko cottons, these are quite lightweight - about as thick as sarashi cotton used for the Olympus sashiko samplers. So if you want to use them for stitching sashiko rather than boro inspired work, I would recommend only using fine 4-ply or 3-ply sashiko threads, and making your stitches slightly shorter.
 
The warp and weft is spun with slightly irregular thickness, which makes the shot effect seem almost mottled, and often there is a big contrast between the warp and the weft, so the shot effect is much more pronounced than in other shot fabrics. I've tried to capture this colour variation in my photos - not easy! If you are using these fabrics with raw edges for boro inspired stitching, you can get gorgeously rich flashes of intense colour where the edges fray.

Six 25 x 26cm (approx) sixteenths of a metre

100% cotton

Made in India