Playing with Bunka Thread

 Our older daughter has lived in Japan for more than 30 years. She originally went there as a missionary church planter with her NZ husband, and all three of her children were born in Japan. For the last decade or so, she has been involved with education, both teaching and administration, in international schools.  

Over the years, we have been recipients of some lovely Japanese items with their unique craftsmanship. One year our daughter gave me a couple of Japanese embroidery kits.

These kits were quite different to the norm and I discovered they were meant to be worked using a punch-needle. I had tried punch-needle at one time and wasn’t very pleased with the results. I probably could have improved with practice but I didn’t really enjoy the process. It seemed to me a ‘cheat’s method’ of getting embroidery done quickly, while I like the slow journey of small stitches gradually building up a picture.

 

So, instead of doing punch-needle I decided to use the unique thread to embroider the picture with long and short satin stitch. Used this way, it becomes a form of thread-painting and I was quite thrilled with the result. The Bunka thread is a beautiful Rayon with a wonderful sheen. It is like a tubular knitted chain and is similar to the threads on tassels such as on a mortar board. To use it for embroidery, you pull on the end and it unchains itself to half the thickness or so. The pulled thread is like crepe with curliness and extends the thread by a lot – 3 or 4 times as much – so is very economical. The thing I love most is the wonderful shading that can be gained from using these threads.

 I finished the above kit some years ago, and made it into a bag for our daughter.

The other kit has been hidden in the cupboard with just a little done. It’s been the project I pick up if there is nothing else happening in my craft world. I found it again a few weeks ago and had a real hankering just to keep working on it. (I think I need new glasses [or my cataracts have worsened!] as I’ve had to use the magnifier a lot lately, but I can manage without that to use the Bunka thread in this kit, so that’s a bonus until I get to the optometrist.)

I really do love red roses!

I'm enjoying the process of using this lovely Bunka thread to do my own style of embroidery.

Meanwhile, thank you to all those who have commented about or joined the Gentle Gems 2021 Hexies of the Month Programme. In case you missed it, you can read about it here.

Happy stitching,

Val