Yuza Sashiko and my exhibition at Loch Lomond Quilt Show last weekend

Now Yuza Sashiko Guild have gone home (this morning), I can catch up on blogging.  There was so much to do over the last few weeks and internet access was a bit limited because I was away, so I couldn't upload all these photos earlier.  Here are pics from the exhibition we had at Loch Lomond last week, as part of the final Loch Lomond Quilt Show.  The quilt above is by Chie Ikeda and combines Yuza sashiko with pieced Bali batiks.  It is a simple design but fabulously detailed.  I didn't get a photo of it when we were at Quilt Week Yokohama last November, so here's several details.  I'll post more of their amazing quilts further down this blog entry.

We brought back the Yuza Sashiko part of the exhibition in a spare suitcase after our Japan trip and it has just gone back to Japan the same way, with a couple of my quilts - 'Masu' and 'Time and Again'.  'Masu' has been shown a few times here and 'Time and Again' is quite well known - one of my older quilts, made in 2001.

There were 10 sampler quilts from the students on the Loch Lomond sashiko course we ran this year.  Everyone did amazingly well to get their samplers put together - there wasn't a lot of time after our last session in April.  Most of them will be going to Helensburgh Quilters exhibition towards the end of June and I'm hoping to take them to Yuza Sashiko Guild's exhibition in Sakata in September.
We are going to run the Yuza and Shonai Sashiko course again starting in September 2014.  Please visit Loch Lomond Quilt Studio's website for more information - coming up soon!  We haven't fixed the dates just yet, but the sessions will be on Thursdays once again.

 

 

Yuza Sashiko Guild ran a rolling 'make and take' sashiko session all day, every day, where you could just take a seat and try stitching a diamond sashiko pattern.  This was so popular, we ran out of workshop kits on the last day.  All the sashiko thread and fabric they brought was snapped up by our visitors too. Yuza Sashiko Guild members did get some 'time off' - Glyn took half of them out to see the other exhibition venues every afternoon.

I met many quilting friends and fellow Quilters' Guild of the British Isles members at the show, including Jackie Norris from Yorkshire (with Reiko Domon below).

 

Here are some of the Yuza Sashiko quilts we showed, plus some detail photos.  I didn't photograph all of them, as I think I already have better photos from Quilt Week Yokohama.  One of the trade offs against having the beautiful location of old churches for exhibitions is that the lighting isn't ideal for displaying quilts, even though the setting looks wonderful.

 

The sashiko sampler quilt shown above left is Reiko Domon's latest work - absolutely incredible.

Here are two of the quilts we showed, but the photos are from Quilt Week Yokohama.

Some general views of the exhibition - I tried to set the quilt stands out so visitors weren't crowded into the central aisle, but had space to step back and look properly, and also could still see all the beautiful carvings in the church.

There were exhibitions in many churches at the southern end of the loch, and evening events were also organised, including a Gala Dinner and a ceilidh.  We had such a good time at the show, both at the daytime and evening events, so it is a shame that this was the last one!