There seems to be a Japanese theme to my crafting these days - kanzashi, shashiko and now yubinuki. The beauty of the internet for us creative types is that it lets us see traditional crafts from all over the world so easily. It's amazing to think that 30 years ago we may not have seem some of these marvels. These two yubinuki are my early attempts. Don't look too closely at the stitching though. It needs a little work. The blue and cream one was rather big so it has become a pin cushion.
The next three were smaller in size but by the time I got to the purple and cream yubinuki I could see a difference in the stitching. Practice makes perfect, I guess.
Yubinuki are decorative thimbles that evolved from practical tools used by Japanese craftsmen and they are spectacular. I suppose you would call them a form of embroidery. They are also surprisingly easy once you get used to making your own thimble bases. The tutorials I used to get started come from a variety of places but I have included a list here:
- Shishi Girl's blog post gives a nice introduction to yubinuki with some diagrams for a straight forward design.
- The best tutorial I found for making a thimble base comes from Ma Mercerie but she also has lots of other tutorials under the search terms 'thimbles' and also 'How I make my thimbles'. There is also an index of her tutorial posts here.
- And, of course, there is Pinterest where there is lots of eye candy and links to other yubinuki tutorial - most of which are in Japanese but you might be able to follow the diagrams. I have a dedicated Pinterest board for yubinuki now if you want to see some beautiful inspiration and ideas for using them. This image is one of my favourite picture tutorials from Pinterest (although I think the text is in Spanish) but I can't find the original link to it.
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