Process¶
Ideation & sketches¶
From this web site,About Sashiko in Tohoku area of Japan it exists each design/pattern depends on the each area (province, pfrefecture, area etc.)
Sashiko developed in cold regions of Japan, particularly in the Tōhoku region, where cotton cultivation was unsuitable.
Among these areas, Aomori, Akita, and Yamagata—located on the western (Japan Sea) side of Tōhoku—experience heavy snowfall in winter, which influenced the evolution of region-specific Sashiko traditions.
On the other hand, while Iwate and Miyagi also had traditional Sashiko, they are more widely known today for post-2011 earthquake reconstruction projects, which helped revive the craft as part of recovery efforts.
From the research about Sashiko, I found that it originated as a method of reinforcing fabric by stitching pieces together to make the most of precious cloth. Its roots can be traced back to the Asuka and Nara periods.
The Sashiko we commonly see today began to spread in the mid-Edo period, featuring indigo-dyed garments stitched with white cotton thread—a classic design that also served as a natural insect repellent.
Aomori#,¶
with its cold climate, was unsuitable for cotton cultivation. For a long time, people had to rely on clothing made from hemp fabric. To endure the harsh winters and reinforce or repair their garments, they began stitching patterns onto hemp cloth. Over time, these stitches developed into unique diamond-shaped patterns, leading to the evolution of "Sashiko"-style garments.
A: Koguin-zashi
B: Nambu hishi zashi
Akita#,¶
There are few historical records, but in Akita Prefecture, a form of Sashiko known as "Akita Sashiko" is said to have been practiced, primarily by the women of samurai families in the Satake domain and the wives of wealthy merchants.
A characteristic of Akita Sashiko is its delicate and intricate finish, as it was often stitched using vividly colored fine silk or a single strand of cotton thread.
Yamagata#,¶
Shōnai Sashiko is characterized by its extremely fine stitches. Unlike Kogin-zashi, it is stitched on tightly woven cotton fabric, creating a more compact and intricate pattern.
Even when using the same 5mm grid as a base for the design, the uniqueness of each artisan’s stitching naturally comes through. In Shōnai Sashiko, an important final step is shigoku, a process of smoothing and adjusting the fabric and thread to ensure they blend harmoniously.
Among Japan’s three major Sashiko traditions are "Kogin-zashi" from Tsugaru in Aomori, "Hishi-zashi" from the southern part of Aomori, and "Shōnai Sashiko" from Yamagata. This rich embroidery culture has been passed down, particularly in the Tohoku region, where winters are especially harsh.
Ōtsuchi Sashiko#,¶
"Ōtsuchi Sashiko" was born from the desire to mend and strengthen the town of Ōtsuchi, which was devastated by the Great East Japan Earthquake. Many residents lost their homes, jobs, and loved ones. Through Sashiko, they aimed to restore their town, making it beautiful, resilient, and a source of pride for everyone.
I had hoped to travel and explore the traditional Sashiko designs that remain in each region, as well as the modern interpretations that have been passed down. However, this winter, the heavy snowfall made it impossible to visit these areas.
Once the snow settles, I’ll set out on my journey.
Sashiko alone is incredibly deep and intricate.
Even just looking at the patterns, I feel that changing the thread colors can create even more variations.
There are so many types of embroidery around the world… and not just embroidery—dyeing, weaving, and sewing as well. I want to explore the many interconnections within the world of textiles.
If we could map these connections and bring them to life by producing clothing and accessories, wouldn’t it inspire more creators to express themselves?
Design & Fabrication¶
1. Map Creating¶
2. Programming of the sashiko design.¶
Option 1
Option 2
Option 3
Prototypes¶
Mentoring notes¶
By Troy,
"The use of data within embroidery is really cool and interesting. If you are you decent with Arduino and processing because there's a really nice, wonderful library that converts processing straight to PST files. So you can jump over all that and you can go straight to embroidery machine files. Straight out of processing and it allows you to gain some incredible control levels over what's happening there. Moreover, it allows you to bring data sets directly into it and have it generate live in real time.
It is a library written by Professor Lou Feis. It's just called, it's just an embroidery library that's specifically written for processing. I was just digging it up, but Yuki wrapped up too quickly so i was Which is good. But there's a library that just makes it super easy in processing to generate.
She took it and made an expandable how should we say? She was doing inflatables or robotic, like good old robotic inflatables, but using the um using the embroidery to limit how the shape change happens. So as you inflate things, the lines inside of there actually hold the embroidery to make certain shapes and patterns and different kinds of touches and feels.
Emerge. And she has a really great paper about that. Yeah, Turtle Stitch has a similar interface to it. It's written by our friends over at CU Davis, and it has a really great… how should we say it has a really great GitHub repository. So you can also take it and borrow it out of there to their PST file generator.
Ours is the one that Lou wrote is similar, but does it differently. So you find whatever flavor works best for you and run with it.
What I really enjoy about all that, especially with the scratch is that how it comes down to actually really bringing out the data side of it. And so Chico and it's heavy tessellations works really great with this. There's a tessellation library written by Jun Hu as well. Let me get this for you.
But because this Shiko is built on the tessellation logic It's really fairly easy to bring those two together. There's a really wonderful library that has all 72 known kinds of tessellations. It doesn't have that last one they discovered last year.
And so putting that tessellation library together with the generator for the embroidery code could really bring you together the pieces that you're putting there and really make it killer.
So using conductive yarns and making conductive yarns in Sashiko and then using that for pressure sensing, all kinds of those sensors.
Is just beautiful. I don't know what it is about the repetitive pattern of Soshiko and what happens with the back the stitches on the back of the textile
Things like hysteresis, as the engineers like to say, that it doesn't recover quite as fast as other things do. And they like their plastic electronics that are all super fast because Textiles have a different precision than plastic.that are actually touching the sensor.
The other part, I'd love to encourage you on is I've done some Sashiko in the past because it makes really wonderfully, beautifully nice electrodes for pressure sensors. Is just beautiful. I don't know what it is about the repetitive pattern of Soshiko and what happens with the back the stitches on the back of the textile that are actually touching the sensor.
Half-fabrication files¶
After Midterm Presentation¶
Creative coding by Shunsuke Takawo and Tabicoding are inspired to me a lot!
I wondered if a generative pattern could be created from the two. From there, I focused on Sashiko designs and thought it would be great to create Generative Sashiko.
Generative Sashiko¶
-Express using only lines
-Be able to export in PES or DST format
-Ensure it works as a proper Sashiko design
Idea 1. Generative Sashiko Platform and Map¶
For each pattern:
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The original design image used as a reference
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The coding code
- The generated sample image
- The story behind the pattern
Map theese items together.
To-Do List: - Generate and collect embroidery data using Processing
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Determine the file format to use (this is still a challenge)
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Use the "PEmbroidery" library
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Output format: DST
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Capture images of the generated samples
Next steps:
-Create a parametric design by combining one pattern with another.
-Develop an algorithm for combining patterns (rules and variations).
-Implement it in Processing and export in DST format.
-Generate sample embroidery data and conduct test embroidery.
WHAT I UNDERSTOOD FROM THE TRIAL¶
I used the sashiko design data in Ink/Stitch to output with an embroidery machine.
I tried combining two types of designs, but I found that the stitching movement wasn’t like a continuous sashiko-style path—instead, the stitches were scattered and jumping around!
This isn’t very good embroidery data! → There’s room for modification.
FOR FINAIZING POJECT¶
ARATA MUKUNOKI, one of our fablab members reserached and produced the SPRO MAKER and it makes me inspired to modify the sashiko partterns.
FORRESTO, his works as Sashiko Pattern Generator is so interesting!!
I think it would be interesting to automatically generate new designs by transforming parameters, just like Mr. Mukunoki and Fores, and then merging various embroidery designs together.
It’s like traveling the world in search of embroidery, weaving, and various textiles. A design embarks on a journey, arriving in a new land, blending with the local designs, and giving birth to something entirely new.
For the embroidery frame, I adopted a stylized design of Japan’s map and laser-cut it from MDF.
First, I started with Japan’s northernmost island, Hokkaido.
Hokkaido is home to the Ainu, an indigenous people with their own unique language and culture. The Ainu have traditional embroidery designs, and I took inspiration from their Morew, a spiral pattern, to create a coded embroidery design.
I also used ChatGPT to refine the coding and generate a beautiful spiral motif.
The final design was embroidered three times with slight position shifts.
I then placed the embroidery inside a laser-cut frame shaped like Hokkaido.
By continuing this process—creating embroidery designs based on the local specialties and symbols of each prefecture—I aim to build a complete map of Japan.