Furoshiki quilt

Christine Linton sent me the photo of her version of the Furoshiki quilt from 'Japanese Quilt Inspirations'.  It is very similar to my original quilt, but I like the lighter blues she included in the border - it gives the quilt a lighter feeling than the original, which is much darker with lots of reproduction traditional Japanese fabrics around the edge.  Her photo also reminds me that I must make a smaller version of this, using 1/2in finished strips, as I have a 20in version of the same furoshiki - when I can find where I put it!  Christine writes -

I thought you might like to see this, shamelessly copied from you! I've made it for our local scout group to give as a parting gift to our student scout leader, who graduated from St Andrews today and is off to pastures new. Tonight is her last scout meeting with us, and about 60 scouts have signed big labels in the back of the quilt. I hope she will remember us when she uses it, and that the rabbits will bring her luck! Thanks for such a lovely design.

Here's the original, when it was on tour with the rest of the quilts from my book, at the Great Northern Quilt Show at Harrogate in 2011.  It looks much better where it lives now, on a friend's bedroom wall.  I got the furoshiki from Gary Bloom's shop - he's got some rabbit designs in his eBay store, but the large size of this design is discontinued now.

Koyotcollection tenugui sale on eBay

 

Gary Bloom at Kyotocollection has got a fantastic selection of tenugui in his eBay shop at the moment, and this week he is having a sale.  He has a wide variety of designs, more than I've seen in for sale in one place (and I shopped for a few tenugui on my last trip). There's everything from kabuki cats to traditional ukiyoe scenes and geisha to more contemporary designs like this fun sewing motif tenugui -

 

 

 

Although they are technically towels, tenugui aren't fluffy but flat weave, absorbent cotton and make unusual panels for patchwork, rather like the cotton furoshiki Gary also sells.  He supplied the 'rabbits and moon' panel for the 'Furoshiki' quilt in 'Japanese Quilt inspirations and is also the person behind the Furoshiki Shop link on my blog.  Unfortunately the large size rabbit furoshiki I used has now sold out, but he has many more furoshiki to choose from.  Have fun browsing!

Furoshiki quilt and wrapping cloths

The furoshiki wrapping cloth I used as the panel centre for my quilt of the same name in 'Japanese Quilt Inspirations' came from Gary Bloom in Kyoto, who sells as kyotocollection on eBay. He's also just opened a brand new website specialising in furoshiki - furoshikishop.com. As well as having the panel above still in stock, he has got some beautiful new seasonal furoshiki - and they are on special sale at the moment on eBay! My favourite is 'Winter' and I am so tempted to make another quilt with this one... perhaps just a small wallhanging?


These smaller furoshiki are roughly the size of a fat quarter and could be framed very nicely with a smaller version of the strip border I used for my quilt. A yabane (arrow flight) border, like the one I did for the warm brown taupes sampler quilt, would also look good.


Other larger size furoshiki include this one from a design by Masao Ido, 'Giouji Temple', which could be used instead of the rabbits and moon panel in my original quilt. You could really go to town with autumnal colours on this one, and perhaps add some sashiko details in the top and bottom border areas.

Kyoto Collection sale

Gary Bloom at Kyoto Collection is having another of his eBay sales, including some super furoshiki cloths (mainly small sizes but great for quilt/large size cushion panels), including Hokusai's Great Wave, and the excellent and long out-of-print Kyoto Shoin textile book series. I can't recommend these books enough - a great resource and essential addition to your bookshelves if you like Japanese textiles. Think I'll add a few of the smaller furoshiki to my stash this time round :-)

The furoshiki panel used for my quilt of the same name (above) was supplied by Gary - click here to buy the same one (his other large size furoshiki are all suitable for making the quilt above at approximately the same size as the original, or use one of the smaller ones and add the border for a wallhanging).

'Kogin and Sashiko Stitch' published by Kyoto Shoin

This is one of the most useful books on the history of sashiko, often very difficult to track down, as the publisher went out of business over fifteen years ago. I often take a copy for the 'library' when I teach sashiko courses. Kyotocollection on eBay has three copies of 'Kogin and Sashiko Stitch' at only $18.50 USD each - 5o% off! This offer only lasts for another day or two.

Gary Bloom, aka kyotocollection, also supplied the lovely rabbit and moon furoshiki wrapping cloth I used for the centre of one of the quilts in 'Japanese Quilt Inspirations' (I wanted to feature one that quilters would be able to buy from outside Japan). He has currently got these listed, along with a great selection of other cotton furoshiki, in his eBay shop. If you would like to make the quilt as shown in the book, you'll need the larger size furoshiki for the centre panel. All the furoshiki he sells are night quality 100% cotton, not the rayon chirimen furoshiki which don't wear as well for quilts.


UPDATE: re the books - Gary e mailed me today and has got a few more copies, so he has listed those too. Check out the others he has listed in the same series! The one on 'Kasuri' has some fantastic designs, plus the 'Furisode' one is a must if you are interested in historical kimono. The book about the Shosoin textiles is a treat too, with incredible textiles preserved from the eighth century, showing how Japanese design was influenced by treasures imported along the silk route. The book on Yuzen dyeing is full of fabulous designs. 'Modern Japanese Textiles' deals more with late nineteenth and early twentieth century designs than contemporary work, a great resource if you are into Meiji and Taisho era designs.

Furoshiki wrapping

Doug at Kona Bay Fabrics posted a link to this useful furoshiki-tying article and tutorial. If you want to know a few different ways to tie one, check it out. While you are at it, search this blog for furoshiki references and you can see photos from the Sashiko Furoshiki workshop, where we do three different kinds of designs found on antique furoshiki.

Leominster & Barnsley - talks & workshop photos

As well as getting on with work for "Fabulous Fat Quarter Bags", this week I did two talks, both "Sashiko and Japanese Country Textiles", one for Leominster Quilters and the second for Creative Embroiderers Barnsley. I feel like I've been exploring England again - the drive over the A628 through the Peak District (?) to Barnsley was particularly stunning re landscape.

Sandra W sent me a some photos from Leominster - this is me with some of the talk items (above) - thanks for the photo! The large sashiko sampler quilt behind me is from "The Ultimate Sashiko Sourcebook" and the quilt on my right (over the table) is "Irori". The little piece to my left is my "Japanese Art Quilt - Boromono" (see my post in June re the summer workshops at Gresford).

Liz J was one of our models for some of the vintage clothing - a woman's hanten work jacket (mid C20th) and sunhat (bought in Yuza-machi in 1992). At both talks, thanks very much to our models and our helpers who held up old furoshiki, boromono and more.



Members of Creative Embroiderers Barnsley started some great pieces at the "Sashiko Furoshiki" workshop on Saturday. I took photos of everyone's work - hopefully I've managed to upload them all here!

Furoshiki are Japanese wrapping cloths, but for the workshop there's plenty of creative leeway about the final use of the panel. So you don't have to make a large furoshiki - many typical furoshiki designs lend themselves very well to cushion panels and samplers. This one combines an elaborate double corner fan with karabana (lit. "Chinese flower") kamon (Japanese family crests) and a corner section stitched with fundo (balance or scale weights, also the shape of ingots).
One of the vintage furoshiki in my collection has a very dense corner fan motif with 16 sections, just like this one -

Another old furoshiki has pointed sections in the fan, adapted in a new version here. The red sashiko thread is being used to make two lines of sashiko in the fundo pattern. The kamon (upside down in the photo) has bamboo shoots and snowball, yukimochi sasa, which I used for a bag in my first sashiko book.

A detail of the fan, showing how the ends of sashiko threads are left loose for plaiting later -

Two corner fans, which playfully combine curved "petals" with yabane (arrow feathers). Plus genji guruma (carriage wheel) kamon and a combination of shippou (seven treasures) sashiko pattern with fundo (bottom right).

A large fan on a one metre square furoshiki, with shippou in the top left corner and ume (plum blossom) kamon crest -
Large fan with shippou merging into fundo (top left) and mitsu tomoe (triple comma) kamon. This kamon can be seen on the temple pillars at Mt Haguro.

Fan, fundo and ume -
Amimon (fishing net) on the left, with a fan and tachibana (citrus blossom) kamon. These smaller panels are going to be included in a quilt.

Two panels - rectangular panel on the left merging shippou into fundou, while the one on the right has another elaborate fan.

Mitsu karabana (triple Chinese flower) kamon with another fan variation and fundou worked in red and cream-


A view of the hall and two more panels, Janet's spiky double fan and Lynne's colourful double fan with more than a hint of Art Deco! A fun and relaxing day while exploring lots of variations on vintage Japanese designs. Thanks very much everyone - you produced some great work!