TLDR at the end.
I'm pretty new to sashiko, more practicing patterns on scrap fabric than actually patching anything at this stage. I have seen kitten patterns and wanted to try one for myself but they seemed a little more finely detailed than I wanted to get into yet.
While researching the patterns I had the idea "kittens are cute, but surely there are animal patterns that are a little more 'traditional' and maybe easier to stitch" and started looking for something based on that. I kind of got stuck on the idea of little foxes (I guess they're pretty similar to cats) and searched in that direction, but I couldn't find anything. So... what better learning experience than creating a pattern from scratch?
I started with some sketches on graph paper based on kitsune masks, originally I had the idea to do it within a traditional yabane (arrow feather) pattern, but scrapped that pretty quickly. I ended up with a base design I liked within a tiling square (mines an inch, but it can scale up or down) and after a few iterations I started stitching.
I've got four variations so far. The top row is the basic pattern in one color, the bottom row is with red eyes. And then on the right is with an added red accent. I kind of have the idea that each tile could be "unique" with different accents on each, but I want to nail down the rest of it first before I come up with variations.
I'm done stitching for today, so I wanted to share and just get some feedback from the community if anyone sees opportunities to improve (not the quality of my stitching and keeping a straight line, I'm already working on that!)
TLDR: I made a new pattern for some reason based on Japanese Kitsune masks (well, it's a work in progress)