This designer panel is by Hitomi Fujita for QH Textiles. Her stunning original designs take hanafukin panels in a new direction, while staying traditional. This design combines summery dragonflies fly above nowaki (grasses), a traditional sashiko pattern, in a misty autumn sky lit by the moon. Hand printed in Japan.
It is a 'hana fukin' with literally means 'flower cloth' and printed on indigo blue coloured narrow width traditional sarashi cloth (an easy to stitch traditional Japanese cotton cloth). Each panel is supplied in one piece with a plain area the same size attached, because they are designed to be stitched through both layers and the edges turned in to make a little cloth, but you can stitch the printed layer separately (as I often do). They may be stitched with a doubled or single thread (or a mixture of both, for an interesting effect), in white or using coloured threads. Any of my medium sashiko threads would be ideal for these panels.
These hand printed designer panels are more expensive than the other hanafukin I sell, but the patterns are so beautiful, I wanted to start selling them! I have more more designs by Hitomi Fujita in stock, including larger panels.
Sashiko Cloth by QH Textiles (Australia)
Printed with water-soluble ink - marks wash out
Composition : 100% Cotton
Individual Cloth Size : Approx. 30cm x 60cm (Finished size : 30cm x 30cm)
About Sarashi cotton -
Sarashi cloth is quite lightweight compared with other sashiko fabrics, but is very easy to stitch, super absorbent and wears well. It is one of the fabrics traditionally used for kimono underwear! The second photo shows a comparison between these panels and those by Olympus Thread Mfg. Co., which are most of the other hanafukin I sell. This QH Sarashi fabric is a slightly finer weave, although the stitch length is about 3mm (the same as my Olympus panels), and is the one in front in the photo. The fabric shown both plain and with 5mm dots is the Olympus fabric. The shade of blue is also very slightly different (it actually looks more extreme in the photo than in real life). For a quilt or other project using hanafukin panels, you could mix the two brands and the colour difference would be minimal. If however, you want an exact colour match with all the panels, please just use hanafukin designs from one brand.
