To be blunt, yes, it’s a straight stitch. Let’s get that out of the way.
Beyond that, sashiko is an expression of mingei, or one-of-a-kind handcraft from the rural parts of Japan that most foreigners never visit. These regions are often too far out of the way, have very few fabulous shrines, temples, museums, or fancy restaurants, but are worth visiting nonetheless.
Sashiko’s origins are simple: it started as a way to make valuable fabric last longer. In every region where it thrived, it developed into more artistic designs over time. As people moved around from village to village, these designs evolved and changed.
At the top left of this image you can see a drawstring bag dyed with indigo, and stitched with a family or shop name, and the bottom is reinforced with heavy sashiko stitching in straight lines to make what appears to be Matsu-kawa-bishi, a geometric design representing pine bark.
But the piece in the center front of the photo is something completely different. It may not be pretty, but it tells a remarkable story, which you can read via the link. This is the knee portion of a pair of leggings that were worn by a farmer, likely in the early 20th century, repaired and reinforced up to five layers deep in some places. The stitching is utilitarian, a checkerboard of doubled cotton thread stitched in neat rows to hold multiple thin layers of cotton together.
But note what it isn’t: this is not the modern standard white-on-indigo sashiko that you might expect. The thread colors vary, possibly recycled from older pieces of clothing or bedding. The fabrics are recycled as well, and may have been sourced from bundles of old fabrics shipped from a city far from the village where it was turned into remarkably useful, if scrappy, work garment.
This next photo shows a corner of a furoshiki, or wrapping cloth, which I viewed at the Aizumicho Historical Museum in Tokushima, Japan several years ago. Note the large, stepped stitches at the very bottom of the image, serving to reinforce the edge of the wrapping cloth. The smaller stitches are both decorative and functional, rendered in freehand (I figured that out when I tried to replicate it and found it did not conform to my usual “draft and graph” technique). The decorative part is obvious; it’s charming and pretty. The functional part becomes apparent when you use the cloth as it would have been used in its day.
Furoshiki are immensely practical and portable cloths used to carry personal items (food, clothing, even large pieces of furniture) which come in many sizes. Commonly tied at the corners, these cloths required reinforcement to keep the fabric from tearing under the strain of being knotted and untied over and over. Designs such as the one above, or more common representations of a fan (actually a chrysanthemum) are often seen on both new and old furoshiki. The lines of stitches meet at the corner, strengthening the fabric and making it more visually interesting.
Why is sashiko so popular all of a sudden in the US? Well… it isn’t. For those of us who live in areas where Japanese culture has been present for decades, it’s always been around. My mother started dabbling in sashiko in the 1980’s after visiting Kasuri Dyeworks in Berkeley, California. Shops such as Nichi Bei Bussan in San Jose, CA and the Japantown district in San Francisco, CA have kept Japanese culture vibrant in the Bay Area where I live.
For folks far from any Japanese cultural influence, sashiko may feel more recent and fresh. If your quilting exposure has been limited to what you can find locally, then something so foreign and different can appear to be new.
KimonoMomo has sold sashiko supplies since 2006, I know there weren’t many options back then aside from shops like Shibori Dragon in Washington, and artists like Sylvia Pippin (now in Washington, previously in Hawai’i). And we’re not Japanese. But we do what we can to carry both American and Japanese needle arts in the same basket.
Bridging the space between Japan and America there are artists such as Lucy Arai, who take the traditional and make it modern. Atsushi Futatsuya at UpcycleStitches brings his experience as a sashiko native (born into a family that produced sashiko art and materials in Japan) to students here in the US, primarily on the East Coast.
The techniques and tools are available to those outside of Japan, if you know where to look, and there are plenty of links here to help get you started.