I believe it is mpeters that has done some sashiko work. You might PM her with questions.
A tutorial
http://www.purlbee.com/sashiko-tutorial/
And Baby Lock has come out with a sashiko machine which may have been what did the work you saw.
http://www.babylock.com/quilting/sashiko/
As for examples, if you enter 'sashiko' in Google images, you will see plenty.