For Mother's Day this spring, I created a slow-stitch kit for my mom. My mom has always been into sewing, and she enjoys a variety of different sewing and quilting styles, including boro stitching. When she and my dad go on a trip, she's been known to pack a boro or sashiko stitching project in one of her bags. There's nothing better than hand-sewing when you're relaxing outside on vacation.
We've long been fans of BanjoFlannel on Instagram, who creates fun patchwork slow-stitch kits and shows you how to use them. In addition to offering super fun kits in her Etsy shop, Diana also created a booklet that walks you through how to create a patchwork sashiko stitching project. The booklet is available in print and as a PDF, and it served as the inspiration for my mom's gift this year.
My son and I started by pulling a selection of fabrics from my mom's favorite designer, Carolyn Friedlander.
Next, I cut the fabrics to spec, according to Diana's booklet, starting with strips...
...and then cutting them into squares and rectangles. There's that postal truck again! (My husband is a postal carrier, so this toy is quite popular in my house.)
After I cut all the little squares and rectangles, I laid them out on my cutting mat to make sure they'd cover the muslin backing.
Then I sorted them by color and packed them into a little bag.
I put a piece of unbleached muslin in the bag along with the patchwork pieces to use as the backing. I printed out the PDF booklet from
BanjoFlannel and wrapped it all up together.
I can't wait to see how my mom's slow stitching project comes out. To learn more about the process and to get all the deets on building your own slow stitch project, we highly recommend buying the booklet from
BanjoFlannel.
Our own slow-stitch kits featuring antique-themed fabrics are in stock right now! I had been saving up a stack of fabrics to create a special Titanic-themed quilt for a friend, but that person has since ghosted me, so chopping up those fabrics to make kits for you all was *quite* therapeutic.
Each kit comes with an 9.5*9.5 piece of backing fabric and enough scraps to cover the backing fabric.
