Sashiko and Quilts trip deadline for applications

I've had a chat with Kathy at Arena Travel today, as we need to know if we will have enough people to run the Sashiko and Quilts tour in January 2016 as soon as possible - ideally by the end of next week.  So if you are thinking about joining the tour, now is the time to book.  We need to make a decision before the end of November so we can confirm details for the classes we would like to do and, if we don't have enough people to run the trip this year, we will postpone it until January 2017.  Click the highlighted link to go to my previous post about the tour, which has links to Arena's website.

Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival - part 12

This will be the last post about the quilt show.  I've rounded up the last of the Traditional quilts.  I think I probably photographed less than a third of the show.  It would have been nice to be able to take more photos, but by the time you wait for other visitors to step back so you can take a photo, it starts to slow down the process.

Sampler quilt in black, cream, off white and purple.  Surrounding the blocks with curved segments is an unusual idea.

I found the border a bit visually disconnected from the centre - it just didn't seem to work for me.

These hexagons were about 1/2in sides...Turning the hexagons in the border on their sides with the centre hexagons upright or changing the scale between centre and border (like here) was a feature in several quilts.  I assume the centre then has to be appliqued onto the border?

Lovely piecing and applique leaves, but not too sure about the echo quilting around the leaves.  

Glyn liked this quilt very much.  The quilting was quite subtle, with circle ripples in the taupe sections and zigzags over the colours.  It doesn't feel particularly traditional though.

Maybe I could have put this quilt in my previous post, where I included quilts with funky fabrics.  

There were several floral applique medallion quilts, most of which used ombre fabrics for their backgrounds.  Although it is not the kind of thing I would make myself, I thought this was beautifully done.

I can't read the labels so I don't know to what extent this was an original design or what elements were from a pattern.  Certainly there are a lot of these kinds of quilt about.  I'm not sure if there is a Japanese quilt designer who is specialising in this kind of design?

This reminded me of some of the Hakone yosegi we had seen, especially some of the more modern work featuring very limited wood colours.

Another floral medallion.  The ombre fabric used in the star patchwork gave the design more depth than a more evenly coloured print would have done.

Yes, those are French knots outlining the motifs. It looked like lace.

Florals on a plaid background.

That's the lot for these blog posts.  I hope you've enjoyed having a look at some of the quilts with me.

Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival - part 11

Some of the quilts in the Traditional category really played with the idea of a Traditional quilt.  I think in the UK many of these would be classed as Contemporary, at least for the purposes of Festival of Quilts.  The fabric assortments were quite amazing, with the quilts having a very retro, scrap bag feeling, but seemingly made from modern fabrics.  There were lots of incredible fabrics printed with text too - I love these and wish I'd bought more of this kind of print when I was at the show.

The crazy kitties on this quilt were so amusing.

Many of the quilts show very humorous and playful motifs and use of fabrics.  'Asobi' (Japanese for 'play') is the word that springs to mind.

A traditionally inspired Lone Star exploding into more patterns, with very contemporary fabric choices - colourful but sophisticated.

The title is 'Thank you'.

Yes, that border is another text print...

Polka dots have been popular with Japanese quilters for a long time.  I like this combination of dots, stripes and checks. Playful!

Bold touches of red and the wide red border contrast beautifully with the pastel prints. More text on fabric too.

This is so far away from what I would class as 'traditional'.  A very unusual layout.  

The royal blue colour scheme, the variety in the prints and the applique flowers and leaves take the traditional Cake Stand block and give it the wow factor for me.  Love it.  This is one I'd have liked to have brought home with me.

A double Double Wedding ring?  Fantastic.  The ombre shading effect is something that appears again and again in Japanese quilts, reminding me of bokashi shading on kimono fabrics and linings.

The yellow text print creating an inner border made me think of the Yellow Pages telephone directory...

Going beyond strippies, with a folk art feeling to those heart curlicues.

The first impression is that the overlapping circles in the centre are irregular, but the overlaps follow a rotational pattern, made up of little fan blocks.  Amazing.

This was probably the ultimate text fabric quilt - certainly the one with the biggest words.  I wonder if non Japanese quilters make such a good job of using kanji in their quilts?

The fabrics make this one of the freshest hexagon quilts I have seen in a long time.  The use of single and double rosettes mixed in together makes the pattern more interesting.  A proper flower garden.

Sunflowers, zigzags and small applique circles - there were many quilts using little circle appliques as part of the design.  Very nice use of stripes in the sunflower circle backgrounds.

This was another quilt with text prints featured on the binding.

Cosmic inspirations, with hexagons as patchwork and applique.

At least one more post to come...