Custom Pet Portrait Kinusaiga Kit: 8" × 8"

Send us a photo of your pet and we'll turn them into a kinusaiga piece you finish yourself.

Kinusaiga is a Japanese fabric art that looks like quilting with none of the sewing in it. You score a groove around the edge of a shape, cut a piece of fabric a little larger than that shape, and tuck the edges down into the groove with the back of a seam ripper. The picture fills in one shape at a time. Most people have the hang of it about ten minutes in.

The one in the photos is Maggie, a Bernese, drawn from the sunny picture underneath it.

How the custom part works
You order first, then we email you to sort out the photo. Any clear picture of your pet's face works, and a real photo file beats a screenshot every time. We draw the portrait from it and send you a rendered version of the finished piece, so you see what you're getting before a thing gets printed. You get two rounds of changes if the ears aren't right or the background wants to be a different color. Nobody's design goes to print before they've said yes to it.

We don't pre-cut these, and that's on purpose
Our stock kits arrive with the grooves already cut, which makes sense when everyone in a party room is making the same picture. A pet is different. You know your own dog's face better than we do, and once you're looking at real fabric you may want to move a line or widen an eye. So your design arrives printed on the transfer adhesive paper and already mounted on the foam board, uncut, and you score the grooves as you go.

What ships
The 8" × 8" foam board with your approved design printed on the adhesive paper, fabric swatches for every section of that design and then some, a seam ripper for tucking, a card with the steps on it, and a shadowbox if you picked one.

You'll need scissors and a craft knife or utility blade for the scoring. Those are the two things we didn't put in the box. A pen is handy too if you'd rather trace a shape than cut around it.

Your PDF comes with it
Every kit includes the digital version at no extra charge, which is the rendered outlines as a PDF. Handy if you want to try a section on paper first, or make a second one later, or just have the drawing of your pet.

Picking a shadowbox
The finished piece pushes into a shadowbox and hangs on a wall or sits on a shelf. Black or natural wood, whichever suits the room it's going in. Skip it if you already have a frame you like, or if you'd rather pick the frame out yourself.

Timing
Plan on a couple of weeks. Most of that is the back and forth on the design, which moves as fast as you reply to us.