Exciting news for me

Yesterday, I heard that I have been awarded the Quilters' Guild's Travel and Education Bursary for teachers. I will be using the funds to help me visit Japan again and study some of the more difficult (for me!) Yuza Sashiko patterns, as shown here in one of Reiko Domon's quilts.

 

Reiko has been stitching sashiko for over thirty years now and is a master of these hitomezashi patterns.  I've been stitching for fifteen years, but I still find diamond and moth patterns some of the hardest to do. Plus, some of these are her own variations.

Here's a detail of another of her quilts, where she has distorted the patterns and stitched them in circles, giving a modern interpretation to traditional designs.

Reiko and other members of Yuza Sashiko Guild are keeping their traditional patterns alive, while finding new uses for them and also inventing new pattern variations.  I will visit Japan during 2016 and take some lessons with her and the group, so I can come back and teach these patterns in the UK.  Now I just have to plan my trip...They will be coming to Quilts UK at Malvern in May, where they will be teaching a one hour sashiko workshop every day and they will also be at World Textile Day at Frodsham, near Chester, on 14th May.

The Quilters' Guild of the British Isles has various bursaries that can be awarded to Guild members - another of the opportunities open to the membership, including student bursaries and awards for beginner quilters, as well as a travel and education bursary for those who don't teach.  Click here for more information.