Japanese waistcoats in Dorset

As promised, here are some photos from Saturday's workshop with North Dorset Quilters - Japanese waistcoats. All are fully lined and resversible. Quite a few quilters added pockets in the side panels.


In denim and a traditional Japanese print, accenting the pocket edges (this will have a collar in the same print) -


In a linen cotton blend with Japanese style print lining (shown inside out here) -


In red, plaid and floral wool -


Brown wool suiting with plaid lining -


Dark blue black miniprint with striped tsumugi cotton side panels -


Woven plaid with coordinating batik lining (will have collar in the same batik) -


I bet some of these are finished by now and probably being worn!

Japanese tableware shop, UK

Just heard, via Brighton & Hove Anglo Japanese Network's newsletter, that Japanese tableware store Utsuwa-no-Yakata, which used to be at Oriental City, has now reopened as "Doki" at Pacific Plaza, Wembley Retail Park.

Mail orders - postage problem

Due to the very icy roads and paths into the village, I won't be attempting a post office run today - a choice between trying to drive the car downhill on a sheet of ice or risk falling over. The post office is nearly a mile away too, so it isn't a short walk.

Hopefully the roads will improve by mid week.

Back from Dorset

My visit to teach a waistcoat workshop near Shaftesbury ended up being a 3 day trip, as I couldn't get home last night. With all the snow and record low temperatures in the UK linked with very inadequate gritting on the roads leading up to my house, it didn't seem like a good idea to push on with the drive only to find the last 400 yards impossibly icy (and going uphill too).

The workshop went well. Rather than run 10 a.m. - 4p.m. with an hour's break for lunch, we decided to work through lunch, just grabbing our sandwiches, so the workshop could finish around 3p.m., in daylight and before the night's big freeze set in. I was concerned that many of the quilters live in rural areas and didn't want anyone having problems getting home.

I'll update this post with photos tomorrow. Some lovely waistcoats were made and almost finished, with just a little handsewing on the collars needing to be done at home. This waistcoat is a fully lined sodenashi hanten (sleeveless hanten jacket), ideal for making in all kinds of fabrics. There were several in wool, some in denim and plenty of plaids, stripes and patterns. With the continuing chilly weather, these are good projects to make.

Time for bed soon, and it is already -8 degrees C!

UPDATE: Kate Pickard sent me a photo from the workshop - I'll put the others in a separate post.

Japanese Quilt Blocks to Mix and Match

I tried to reorder copies of the my first block book,"Japanese Quilt Blocks to Mix and Match" (above) today, along with more copies of the new "Japanese Taupe Quilt Blocks", but it is currently out of stock and reprinting. The distributors hope to have the reprints in stock by the end of January.

I have more copies of the new book arriving tomorrow and the free postage and packing offer (UK second class) runs till New Year.


The block selection in the two books is, of course, different but the new book's blocks aren't more difficult. The finished block size, 9in, is the same in both books, so blocks from the two can be mixed and matched together.

Moelfre Quilters, Anglesey

A mini workshop and talk today with Moelfre Quilters, Anglesey - no time to remember to take any photos, we did the "Asanoha Sashiko Book Bag" panel as a workshop. This is now a kit, but it began as a workshop at the Grosvenor quilt shows around five years ago. Moelfre are a new group who have been going for about a year and are working on some interesting projects. We had a great day, apart from the rain at the end, with a double rainbow on the way there and a stunning sunset in the afternoon.

UPDATE - One of the Moelfre quilters had made this kinchaku drawstring bag from the instructions in "Japanese Quilt Inspirations". Very nicely made and beautifully stitched sashiko.

Last weekend's workshops - Quiltessential and Rocheberie Quilters

On Friday, I taught the "Super Strips" workshop at Quiltessential in Derbyshire. Everyone used Moda jelly rolls, which are the most accurately cut, so the patchwork panels came out very nicely and went together quickly too. It is also very easy to coordinate the Moda rolls, as each one features just one range of fabric, repeating designs in different colourways which all work together.


The same rolls have been chosen many times in different workshops but it is rare for several quilters to be using the same roll at the same time. We had three pairs of jelly rolls - "Lumiere de Noel" -


"Maison de Garance" -


and "Awesome" -


It is interesting how differently the panels work out, even starting off with the same strip roll, depending on which strips are selected for the centre. "Lumiere de Noel" and "Maison de Garance" look similar - they are by the same designer and some fabrics use the same motifs.

"Collections for a Cause" roll - I think this one was "Hope"? Lovely repro prints.


This roll was so subtle -


"Twiggy" collection by Sanae - I used the layer cake of this for blocks recently -


Another contemporary roll -


Bright, summery florals -


If anyone can remind me of the last few roll names, please do!

This quilt was started when I taught the "Japanese Circles and Squares" workshop at Quiltessential in early May. It has been finished with big stitch hand quilting, sashiko style.


"Japanese Circles and Squares" was the workshop Rocheberie Quilters had chosen for Sunday, so I'm looking forward to seeing some of these patchworks finished in a few month's time.


There were lots of different fabric combinations chosen, from subtle autumnal colour schemes through to graphic black and red.


The square in a square is the original version of this design, but the "art quilt" one had several new versions in progress too (like the one above).


The art quilt style works really well for batiks too.


Lots of inspiration!

Takenoko

My constant feline companion, 17 August 1995 - 20 November 2010 - various photos -


With his mum, Fluff, just a fortnight ago -


And about ten days ago -

Yuki Tsumugi weaving

Katie Chaplin at Japan Crafts posted a link to this great video showing the production of Yuki Tsumugi - click here.

I have several tsumugi of this type on sale at the moment, by the metre.

New v second hand kimono

A textile collector friend asked this question yesterday via e mail -

In conversation today someone told me that the Japanese won't wear secondhand kimono, which is why there is always a lot of fabric on the market. Is that correct ? I thought they revered and recylced the fabric, and suppose I presumed they passed it down through families?

I thought my (quick) reply might be of interest here (I've added a bit extra in brackets)-

Yes and no! Some people won't. I saw a lot of hand me down kimono accessories worn when I lived there - 'my mother's obi', that kind of thing (of course, you don't know this unless someone tells you!) Because kimono aren't one size fits all, it isn't always possible to wear kimono without some alteration to it.

The first time I saw a lot of people buying second hand kimono to wear was in 2002, in Tokyo. (That was quite shocking at the time).

Kimono like Oshima tsumugi are so expensive new, there's a big second hand market for them - and they are still several hundred pounds second hand! Check out the Japan Now and Then blog link from my blog to read about stuff like Oshima. From my experience, people won't mention if they are wearing second hand kimono or if their kimono are second hand, unless they are textile collectors like us - but how many people here tell you they're wearing something second hand? Also, there's the big difference between second hand and the obviously retro/vintage. Kimono date quite quickly IMHO.

People don't want to wear kimono with bad stains on them. That's more of a problem. A lot of the kimono sold on places like eBay have stains that are too prominent to be worn properly, or else have bad 'patina' markings where the silk has yellowed with age or has been affected by mould (even when cleaned off, it leaves marks). Some kimono fabric embroidery/dyeing just won't clean. The 'spot cleaning' method used by Japanese dry cleaners using a benzine spray spreads out and loosens some marks and small stains, but they still often won't clean out. I've got quite a few items in my collection where it is obvious that a cleaning attempt has failed.

The reason there's usually a lot of recycled kimono fabric on the market is because kimono are an incredibly easy item to take to pieces and yield a lot of useful pieces, without annoying darts, shaping etc. which is easy to make into something else. There's a big tradition of recycling kimono into other kimono or accessories, and now 'kimono reforumu' into arty clothes. It's a way of repurposing the fabric while not using any really badly marked pieces.

When members of Peaceful Heart Quilt Group came to the first Festival of Quilts in 2003, they wore kimono to both the gala dinner and the international evening (the photo below is at the gala dinner). Chie Ikeda wore a beautiful 1950s furisode - too old to have been her own, probably slightly too new to have been her mother's.


It was gorgeous. I tracked down a furisode which reminded me of it a little - the kimono on the right in this photo from my exhibition in January 2008 -



There is too much patina and marks on the silk for mine to be wearable. The marks don't show up easily in photos, but the silk is quite yellowed in real life.


Perhaps another point worth mentioning is that a lot of furisode and formal kimono being sold via eBay and other online shops is they include quite a lot of ex rental wedding kimono, furisode and tomesode too - kimono that haven't been owned personally. These are often in very good condition, just out of fashion or with minor damage, but can only be worn for weddings in Japan.