Sake Boxes - Tassels, part 1

I do like tassels! Be they a simple bundle of threads to the most extravagant passementerie, I find them joyful. I like making tassels – although I generally stick to the simplest techniques – and I like stitching tassels. Happily, they feature quite frequently in Japanese embroidery.

The first, and simplest, that I stitched was on Suehiro. There are two tassels; each has a flat silk horizontal foundation that is held with a tightly twisted thread that is couched into place. Simple but effective.

© JEC/Carol-Anne Conway

The single tassel on Himotaba is the one I have found most challenging. Each strand of the tassel is stitched as a line of staggered diagonals. When I had finished stitching, the tassel looked too light and flimsy for the piece. I overcame this by stitching an additional strand between the existing ones. This resulted in a fuller looking tassel but I now know that the problem was my poorly executed staggered diagonals. When I stitched Loving Couple, I encountered the same problem but this time, rather than fill the spaces with more feathers, I restitched them. It took three attempts before I was happy with them.

© JEC/Carol-Anne Conway

The next tassels I stitched were those on my own design, Riches. While they look more flamboyant than those on Suehiro, the method of stitching is essentially the same, a horizontal foundation held with a couched thread. Their shape and padding give them their voluptuous looks and the katayori couched around the skirts makes them appear ruffled.

© Carol-Anne Conway

The tassels on the sake box also use, more or less, the same methods as Suehiro and Riches. The horizontal foundation layer is stitched in flat silk over a layer of self-padding. This time the foundation is held with lines of staggered diagonals. Had this been a couched thread, I would probably have positioned the lines by eye. For a line of staggered diagonals, I knew I would need a guide line of some sort. I opted to use the shell powder technique.

© JEC/Carol-Anne Conway

One of the reasons I do not like this method is that (when done by me) the lines are thick and not very precisely positioned but, in this instance, they were good enough to serve as a guide.

© JEC/Carol-Anne Conway

© JEC/Carol-Anne Conway

© JEC/Carol-Anne Conway

I’m still struggling with staggered diagonals and was not 100% happy with these. I decided to work the second tassel and then consider whether or not to redo these.

© JEC/Carol-Anne Conway

Happy Stitching