Join artist mai ide, a visual artist based in Portland, OR, for an evening of sashiko stitching, a traditional Japanese mending technique.

In this workshop, participants will explore the cultural significance of sashiko and its deep ties to sustainability, Mottainai=Do not waste, use everything. While also engaging in a gentle practice of mending—both garments and oneself. Through the act of repairing frayed clothing together, participants are invited to reflect on personal experiences of brokenness and to discover new ways of healing through shared creation.

Participants reclaim slow, intentional moments as they stitch, meditating on vulnerability, resilience, and connection. Each thread carries intention: a way to care for ourselves, our garments, and the stories they hold—preserving rather than replacing. This cloth becomes more than material; it carries history and, through mending, becomes part of a new story.

Come join us!

Cost: $90-115 sliding scale (includes sashiko mending kit)

*tea and snacks will be served

What is Sashiko?

Sashiko (刺し子) is a traditional Japanese embroidery and stitching dating back to the Edo period (1615 – 1868). It was first developed among working-class people, farmers, and fishermen to mend their daily clothes and clothing. Through Sashiko, they could make garments stronger, more durable, and last longer. They kept mending in this way and passed techniques down from generation to generation. As such, Sashiko is one of the oldest traditional Japanese upcycling techniques. Artist Mai Ide finds a confluence between mending fabric and repairing emotional intimacy, loneliness, and fragility. Her workshop is a space for participants to eliminate lingering trauma and reframe our society for deeper emotional communal bonds and authentic humanity which we have forgotten.

About Your Instructor

Mai Ide is an artist from Tokyo, now based in Portland, OR. Her multidisciplinary art investigates her own cultural intersectionality and deep ambivalence as an non-immigrant, mother, and woman. Ide's use of salvaged fabric and sashiko stitches conveys their simultaneous vulnerability, fragility, resilience, and fortitude under a constrained, violent, and volatile society. Ide holds a BFA in Art Practice from Portland State University (OR) and an MFA in Visual Studies at Pacific Northwest College of Art, as well as degrees in sewing, pattern making, and textile design in Japan, where they worked for twelve years as a material designer. Previous exhibitions and performances include at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum and Museum of Kyoto in Japan, and Jordan Schnitzer Museum in Oregon.