Yuza Sashiko current exhibition at the Sanno Club, Sakata

My friend Reiko Domon has posted these wonderful photos of Yuza Sashiko Guild's current exhibition at the Sanno Club in Sakata on her Facebook page and I am sure she will not mind me showing you them here!  If you are in Sakata before the exhibition closes on October 10th, it is not to be missed.

I was there for the exhibition in 2014 - you can see photos and videos of that one here. The small sampler on the right above is from my final course at The Studio, Loch Lomond.  I hope to take some of last year's student pieces to Japan next time Yuza Sashiko Guild have an exhibition at the Sanno Club.  It is a beautiful old building and perfect for exhibitions.

Video of Yuza Sashiko Guild's September exhibition

Izumi Sato of Yuza Sashiko Guild has posted a lovely video giving a tour around their exhibition at the Sanno Club in Sakata last September.  Just click the link below to get started.

Meeting old friends around Yuza

One of the really nice things about coming back to Yuza is meeting friends when we've got out of touch.  Before the internet, keeping in touch with many Japanese friends was difficult for me, because I can't read and write Japanese and many of them can't write a lot of English easily.  Also I moved house several times over the last few years.  I was so happy to meet Kyoko Abe again when we came back to the Sanno Club after lunch on Thursday.  Kyoko retired as a teacher when I lived in Yuza and we used to share our interest in lace crochet!  Following crochet patterns was how I started to understand Japanese craft book diagrams.  We lost touch since about 2000.

Kyoko gave me many pieces of kimono fabric in the 1990s, and a lot of the centre squares in my 'Time and Again' quilt were her fabrics.  She recongised them like old friends - the grey one with the pink and white squares was from her.

She told me this pink kimono silk was made into a blouse.

This wool muslin with the asanoha pattern, one of my favorite fabrics in the quilt, was one of her family's fabrics.

I am sure this silk was her's too.

This piece came from the end of a kimono tanmono (roll) and shows the shading at the end, plus part of the manufacturer's name.

She was very interested in all our work.  The 3-D balls in sashiko are one of Yuza Sashiko's specialities - they have a play ball inside.

I hope I can meet Kyoko again next time I visit Yuza.  She gave me many of her family's kimono, which have such an interesting history, and I have used them in my kimono talks so many times.  So I would like to say a big THANK YOU to Kyoko Abe!

Other friends I haven't seen for a long time include Keiko Abe, who started me off with Koginzashi, and Takahashi Obiya, who runs the shop where I learned to sew kimono.  These are all people I feel gave me a significant direction change with the work I do.  It's great to meet them again after so long.  I bought some tenugui towels at the Obiya shop this time and I'm planning to use them in quilts.  The Utamaro bijin ukiyo-e handkerchief I used for 'Shonai no Yume', my second quilt, came from Obiya too.

Wednesday at the Sanno Club

We spent Wednesday morning at the exhibition at the Sanno Club.

The 'display boards" are actually folding tables with only one side up.

There were a lot of visitors.

Some had come quite a long way -  Denny and his wife were there from Takahata-machi near Yonezawa city.

The Sanno Club is close to some parts of Sakata used as location for the movie 'Okuribito' (Departures).

It is also close to the park with the Meiji era lighthouse.

Near the Sanno Club.  This part of Sakata city hasn't changed so much.

Outside the Sanno Club.