I'm Going to Make a Saturday Evening Post Quilt When I Grow Up

My Japanese friends take lots of classes.  Some study flower arranging (Ikebana), Ishii likes sashiko, and three of them -- Otsuka, Shinagawa, and Togo -- are drawn to quilting.  Last weekend I went to the Yokosuka Culture Hall to see the quilters' annual exhibit.  It was amazing.

The students were tasked with creating quilt versions of magazine covers by an incredible Japanese illustrator, Rokuro Taniuchi (1921-1981).  Taniuchi produced more than 1,000 covers for Shincho, a weekly magazine published in Yokosuka, and much of his work now belongs to the Yokosuka Art Museum.  His work is whimsical.  I foresee a trip to the Yokosuka Art Museum in my future.

Shinagawa appliqued the child's shadow on her quilt.

Those are little devils (oni) hanging on that tree.

The Taniuchi quilts were the focal point of the exhibit but there were other interesting pieces in the back of the gallery.  I especially liked what my friends came up with when their teacher tasked them with making quilt squares featuring houses.


Otsuka-san made the dark blue house on the lower right (left). She enrolled in the quilting class after I took up knitting and, yes, my one pair of mittens and three mufflers seem paltry compared to what she's managed to produce during our respective novitiates. The standard house pattern she chose reminds me of the little wooden houses I've been collecting since Matt was a baby.

Togo-san made the two squares in the upper half of the picture at right. She has a penchant for Hawaiian fabric. I think she's been taking the class for about a year longer than Otsuka, hence the addition of driveways.

Shinagawa-san created the four squares shown above. These squares depict her brother's house viewed from the four different points of the compass during the four seasons of the year. How clever is that? She plans to present these squares to her brother when the exhibit ends. If any of my brothers desire a similar gift from a sister, they will have to move to a teepee or log cabin first.

The two major pieces pictured above were fashioned by a friend of my friends. Her name is Yumiko, her husband is a retired Japanese naval officer, and she taught my Oakleaf friends calligraphy a few years ago. Meeting and chatting with Yumiko was a highlight of my day and probably year as well.

Yumiko is a talented calligrapher and quilter but she told me that classical Japanese literature is her greatest passion. She belongs to a group that studies the classics and produces a journal twice a year. The most recent issue of this journal includes an article she wrote about famous literary sites she visited in Shiga Prefecture near Kyoto. There are a dozen or so photographs accompanying the article and Yumiko decided to use three of those photographs as templates for quilt squares while her classmates were stitching together houses. The teacher not only approved this project but gave Yumiko an obi to use for a background. The finished product is on the right in the picture above.

Please note the orange tiger square in the lower left corner of the picture.  Shinagawa-san made that and used one of her father's neckties as the border.  Stuff like this makes my sentimental heart sing.

Maybe you can see the orange tiger square better in this picture I took of Yumiko standing next to the Tale of the Genji quilt she made a few years ago. The Tale of the Genji, as you probably know, is the pinnacle of Japanese classical literature. Yumiko's quilt depicts her vision of a scene wherein the hero is strumming his feelings to his wife who has just chopped off all her hair in anticipation of becoming a nun.

Or that's how I understood what Yumiko was telling me. Looks like I ought to tackle The Tale of the Genji, assuming I ever get to the end of Ulysses . . .

Yumiko made this Compass Quilt for her son, to help him find direction in his life.

Yumiko gave me a copy of her journal article as I was exiting the quilt show.  Yesterday I shared the article with Dr. T.  He was duly impressed and pulled out his trusty Atlas to show me the location of Shiga Prefecture.  Now I sense two trips in my future:  the Yokosuka Art Museum and Shiga prefecture.