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Today is the day! My new book, Sashiko’s Stitches (published by WorthyKids \/ HBG<\/a>), is out in the wild!!<\/p>\n What can I say that I haven’t already about making books? It continues to be magical, continues to be a joy. With each book, I try to challenge myself in new ways, and with this one I wanted to see if I could create a traditional watercolor vibe with digital painting. I used Procreate (and even created my own brushes), and it was fun.<\/p>\n My kids’ books tend to be on the silly side, but this one has emotional oomph, I’d like to think. “A quiet book,” my editor said. I wanted it to fee<\/em>l beautiful, you know? There’s subtle silliness if you look closely, though.<\/p>\n Some tidbits that might be of interest…<\/p>\n The impetus of the book theme, in no small part, came from the pandemic and how it affected the kids around me. I don’t refer to the pandemic in the book, but I focused on the big feelings that kids and kids-at-heart (all of us, basically) experience and how to make them into a source of beauty<\/p>\n This book features Sashiko embroidery, told through a girl named<\/em> Sashiko. We added informative factoids about the craft in the back matter, which I always love adding:<\/p>\n A book evolves throughout each phase. When we pitched the book, my initial sketch was pretty un-dynamic:<\/p>\n I loved that my editor encouraged me to add more movement and the final spread ended up looking like this:<\/p>\n I think this book — more than any of the others that I’ve worked on — changed the most from the initial pitch to the final version. My excellent agent, Adria<\/a>, guided and encouraged me throughout that whole trajectory. I’m so, so lucky.<\/p>\n Ahhhh. How amazing. Another book! I hope you love it. You can find Sashiko’s Stitches anywhere books are sold, but if it’s not readily available, it can be ordered from any bookseller.<\/p>\n To celebrate, I am doing a book giveaway as per usual! I’ll also include a little Sashiko mystery gift as part of the giveaway. All you need to do to enter is comment below. If you’d like an idea for commenting, perhaps you can share your favorite childhood activity?<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/040224SashikosStitchesPubDayGiveaway2-1-scaled.jpg\")
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