Festival of Quilts photo round up

I can't believe it is all over now, or the amount of hard work that went into it (for us and all the other participants), but Festival of Quilts 2019 has passed as a complete whirlwind!  Here's Glyn with the van last Wednesday morning, on our way down to the show.

Setting up on Wednesday - lunchtime! Having a large van (the reason why will follow soon), we brought a lot of fabric...

One of the things I love about Festival of Quilts is the social side of things, including meeting up with quilters I've known for years, as well as meeting new people. One of the first quilters who came by on Thursday was Mags Ramsay, who I met at my first Quilters' Guild AGM - we were both eyeing up the same piece of African hand dyed fabric, but luckily I wanted one end and she wanted the other! We had a memorable trip to Japan together in 2006. Check out her blog here.

Last time I met Diane Hawkins was also in Japan, last January at the Amuse Museum. She loves Japanese textiles and had made a version of my Rice Sack Bag. Lovely!

I remember Diane making this piece on one of my early Japanese Art Quilt Boromono workshops! How time flies.  That was back in 2012 - there are photos from the workshop here.

One friend from Gresford who I would usually see at Festival is Maureen Poole.  Unfortunately she couldn't come this year, as she had fallen and put herself in hospital! However, her Badgers quilt was there, in Pictorial Quilts. It is constructed using English paper piecing, her favourite technique.  We went to see it one morning before the show was open to the general ticket holders at 10 - the VIP ticket holders get in from 9am, so the show effectively starts an hour earlier, at a more relaxed pace, but her wall hanging was already getting quite a lot of attention.

Here are a couple of photos of the stand.  It was rare that you could actually get close enough to see the fabrics - Thursday morning was unbelievably busy.

Meeting more friends - Glyn gets a big hug from Lorchen Nunn!

This is why we hired a hi top van.  On Thursday evening, we picked up another Japanese tansu from Leicester.  I bought it from the same woman who had sold me a larger one several months ago, and she was delighted that the two will be reunited in the same room.  Although I have collected kimono for nearly 30 years, I have never had proper storage for them.  Most of my collection will fit in these - I hope!

 

This is the inside of the tansu (Ki's photos). It was made around 1900 and has sliding trays, in a similar style to a Western linen press.  This one is all kiri wood (Japanese paulownia) and so is very light weight, which I appreciated when we carried it into the house last night.  It comes apart into three sections. 

The other tansu I bought a few months ago is much wider and heavier, with the front made from keyaki (Japanese zelkova), and the back in pine. The drawers and trays are kiri though.  These two tansu have an interesting history, as they were exported to Korea during the Japanese occupation and left there.  Ki brought them to the UK in the 1970s.

Now that Olympus have released their lovely striped fabrics and I sell them in my shop, I decided to give 'Irori' an outing again. It is such a simple quilt, but still a great favourite of mine.

Having the shelves works well.

I did the Sewing Quarter Live Theatre on Saturday afternoon, which was a fun experience. I found it quite strange not being able to see the broadcast monitor though, so I had to keep having a look at what was showing on the screens at the sides!

John Scott was the presenter and we always have a lot of fun together.  The blue tinted lighting made his hair look almost as blue as mine!

Because we were so busy, I didn't get to see much of the quilt exhibitions at all.  The three exhibitions I really wanted to see were just behind us, so I did get to those.  The first one is by Michael James.

His current work is very different from his early striped pieces. 

Eszter Bournemisza's gallery was just behind his. Another favourite textile artist.  I find her use of layers, transparency, maps, plans and shadows fascinating.  Glyn loved her circuit board pieces.

I wish I had the space for this at home!

Back on the stand.  We now have spinners for the sashiko and kogin threads. Keeping them stocked up takes time but they work far better than having thread just in baskets.

The downside of going to the NEC is the long drive home... and we had to do it in one go this time.  Because the organisers don't let the vans through to pack up until about 6.30pm, we arrived home at 4.45am... We will be back at the show next year! For now, my next event will be the Great Northern Quilt Show at Harrogate at the end of this month.

Tansu for my kimono

I have been collecting kimono since 1991, first by default (I needed kimono for tea ceremony), then I acquired a few more because my neighbours, the Obiya family, taught me how to sew kimono in Yuza-machi, and then I just started buying more, because I loved them! Some are to wear, but the bulk of my collection is for design inspiration, and are too old/small/delicate to be worn.  The one thing I have never had is a proper kimono tansu to store them in. So recently, I started looking...

We found quite a few old tansu on recent trips to Japan, but the logistics of getting them shipped over here proved difficult.  It would cost a lot to ship one (over £1000), then there would be the cost of Customs Duty and VAT, plus the risk that it could get damaged on the way over. These are some of the tansu we looked at in second hand shops in Japan. 

I had looked in the UK too, but, unlike in the USA, we don't get many old issho dansu (clothing tansu) for sale here. Most of those that do occasionally come up for sale are not the 'kimono dresser' kind at all - with drawers inside of cupboards, a feature I really like - and tend to be rather expensive antiques.  I also realised I was going to need either more than one, or a very big tansu.

A few weeks ago, I got lucky - the right one appeared on eBay, in the UK! So we bought it and collected it a few weeks ago. We had to hire a van, because it is almost 6ft long, and separates into three sections.

Here is is reassembled temporarily.  It needs a few minor repairs but is in excellent condition for a piece of furniture from c1900.

These are the seller's photos.  It has an interesting history, because it was taken first to Korea during the Japanese occupation, and imported to the UK from there. The wood is Japanese keiyaki (elm), the carcass is mainly pine, and the drawers are kiri (paulownia).

Soon it will be home to my oldest kimono and obi. I love it. You can see some of my kimono collection here, when I had two exhibitions at Llangollen, ten years ago.