Wrapping up the Quilt Show

And then there's 3D quilting.

A Christmas tree near the center of the exhibit hall was decorated with quilted moose ornaments like this one:

A half dozen women clustered around a quilt that seemed to depict an aerial view of traditional Japanese umbrellas. None of us could figure out how the quilter achieved what I can't help but refer to as "the nipple effect".

A small portion of exhibit space is devoted to quilted bags and clothing. A part of me says this is so much more fun than a bed cover that only a few people will ever see, but another part of me says that my children will have me committed if I start waltzing around in patchwork skirts. Then the first part reminds me that we live in different towns and they might never find out.

The dress on the left almost makes me want to go to another Navy Ball

Once I master circles -- and I've already invested in a compass -- a pattern like the one above will make good use of my random fabric stash.

A girl can always dream.

Yokohama Quilt Show: Through a Magnifying Glass

American readers might be surprised to hear that roughly ninety-seven percent of the quilts accepted for display at the Yokohama Quilt Festival were stitched by hand.

This boggles my mind.

Today I'm sharing photographs of three of those hand-stitched quilts together with close-ups to give you an idea of the exquisite artistry involved.

If this one isn't called "Rally 'Round the Flag", it should be.

An Elfish USA?

One of three quilts created by Russian children in memory of tsunami victims

I'm pretty sure they had help from their mothers

According to Artistic, compasses are particularly difficult

"Start of Things in Yokohama" highlights the city's history

Someone spent a lot of time embroidering historical artifacts

The creativity of these people fascinates me. How hard is it to sew a straight line? Stay tuned and you'll soon find out.

Yokohama Quilt Show: If These Don't Inspire Me, Nothing Will

If quilts aren't your thing, tune out right now and don't come back for a couple of days. As usual, I snapped pictures of every amateur quilt at the Yokohama Quilt Festival. I would have captured the professional quilts as well but those security guards were shadowing me all day.

The "Comfort Quilts from Around Japan" exhibit consumed a lot of my time and a corresponding amount of space on that little plastic card in my camera. Since I'm going to become a grandmother in the Year of the Dragon, the baby quilts seemed even more fascinating than usual. Surely a baby is all the motivation I need to finally try to create a quilt myself. Cribs aren't all that big so this seems like a perfect project for a beginner.

By the time I'm 90, maybe I'll be able to hand-quilt hearts like these.

The 3D triangle border sure is cute

Simple squares and lots of different fabric--I think I can do this

Maybe my tenth grandchild will get an umbrella quilt

The "Memory Quilts" exhibit was also fun. If I run out of grandchildren, I suppose I could whip up a little quilt for my (only) favorite dog, Mel.

Three ladies were mesmerized with this quilt depicting plates and dolls displayed in a hutch. They stood right in front of it for over twenty minutes, at which point I settled for a sidelong picture. A quilt like this would be a perfect way to use all the random pieces of fabric in my stash although, let's face it, for now I need to be content with joining squares, rectangles, and an occasional triangle.

Sigh.

Yokohama Quilt Show: One Block Wonder

A gargantuan quilt suspended from the ceiling

Today was opening day of this year's Yokohama Quilt Festival and we got to Minatomirai just after the doors opened. No way were we going to miss seeing Big Bird receive her prize for her "One Block Wonder". She was the only American quilter to get an award and one of the few non-Japanese prize winners, the others hailing from Taiwan.

Note that her sweater complements the quilt's colors.

A closer view of the quilt (above) might help explain its title. Big Bird pieced this quilt from a single length of fabric rather than using lots of different fabrics. She has a lot more self-restraint than someone else we all know, the person who can't walk out of a fabric store without at least a quarter meter of every fabric on offer.

Here she is twiddling her thumbs in the winner's circle a few minutes before the prizes were awarded. Note the pink sweater is the only item of clothing in the winner's circle that isn't black, dark blue, or grey. As if we wouldn't be able to spot her by her hair . . .

Our Japanese quilting friends helped celebrate the occasion

We are all so proud of Big Bird. Next week she's teaching interested Navy medicine spouses how to make a tote bag from four fat quarters of fabric. Not me, though. I am still working on the quilted purse Shinagawa-san taught us how to make last year.

Miss Piggy Wants to Steal All These Quilts

Big Bird treated us to coffee and a show-and-tell before our quilting bee this week. She's made 25 quilts so far with two more in the works. At right, she's holding the first quilt she constructed.

Some of her quilts have been featured in quilting magazines; we're trying to talk her into submitting some of the others to the juries that choose quilts for exhibit at the Tokyo and Yokohama quilt shows.



"Water Lilies"

For the "Water Lilies" quilt she used fabric with a turtle pattern for the small blocks circling each lily pad.

"Asian Blocks"

The quilt above features large blocks of fabric with Asian themes like chrysanthemums, carp, and kabuki actors.

This is only the tip of the iceberg. I plan to share some more pictures of her work when I get home from the Machida shrine sale tomorrow.

Rising to the Occasion

The Ancient Mariner and I sauntered casually through the doors of the Mercure Hotel to check out the quilt exhibit. "Good Lord," I choked, "they put our names under our blocks!" The six small quilt blocks displayed in the lobby were the only entries to which names were attached. 

Most of the pieces were on display in a room just off the lobby.  As we edged into that room, one of us blushing furiously, two ladies seated on chairs in the corner stood to greet us.  One balanced herself on a cane.  Try as we might by word and pantomime to convince them to return to the safety and comfort of their folding chairs, they remained on their feet.

Realizing we had reached a cultural impasse of sorts, the Ancient Mariner and I signed the guestbook and inspected each item on display; one of us used facial expressions and gestures to indicate which items most appealed to her; the other nodded sagely at appropriate intervals while keeping one eye on the lady with the cane in case she started to tip over.  We were walking an emotional tightrope.  We didn't want to overstay her balance, but we didn't want to offend these nice ladies by rushing through the exhibit too quickly.  What's a gaijin to do?

I decided to swallow my embarrassment and take ownership of my quilt blocks.  I gestured toward the lobby and then gestured toward myself.  The lady with the cane responded by beaming at me and gesturing toward her own chest.  We all shuffled out to the lobby where she pointed to her name on the card and the square she had made.  I pointed to my name and squares and admired her tiny perfect stitches.

Then the Ancient Mariner took our picture to prove to my children and siblings that I really did make quilt squares that were displayed in a public building in Japan.

Next time I'll try to get a picture of the Ancient Mariner looking sage at a quilt exhibit.
      

Curious George and the Samurai Helmet

Back in the late 1980s, the most treasured book in our house was Curious George Rides a Bike. The book's main appeal, as I recall, was the detailed instructions for transforming a newspaper into a boat. We folded lots of newspapers in those years and marched around the house with boats on our heads. It's a happy memory for me, and I think the same holds true for my children.

I remembered those boat hats when I stumbled across several fabric samurai helmets at the quilt show the other day.  Pip wasn't around during the Boat Hat Era so I think maybe we should spend our time during the Ancient Mariner's summer deployment folding all the fabric in my closet into samurai helmets.  I certainly have enough fabric to cover the heads of 24-and-still-counting great-nieces and -nephews.  Plus mine and Pip's, of course.

Shinagawa-san is on a quest to find the instructions.  My fingers are crossed.   

Quilt Blocks to Cheer the Tsunami Victims

Weather Explorer and I set out for an Ikebana board meeting the other day but wound up at a quilt exhibit in the lobby of the Mercure Hotel instead.

It's not like we didn't try our best to find the board meeting. When they told us we would be meeting at the Yokosuka Support Center, we thought they meant the community center right outside the main gate of the Navy base. We rode the elevator to the seventh floor and then worked our way down and through the building, poking our noses into every classroom and stairwell to no avail. When we reached the ground floor, we even asked the lady seated behind the lobby information desk but she didn't have a reservation for Ikebana.

All dressed up with no board meeting in sight, we decided to check out the quilt exhibit at the hotel across the street. Shinagawa-san has asked us to prepare quilt blocks like these for display next month and subsequent donation to benefit the tsunami victims. I am hoping "donation" translates to "buy your own quilt block" since I cannot imagine anything I could throw together would bring happiness to a tsunami victim.

Although I pieced together six quilt blocks as part of a Tidewater Oakleaf Club project several years ago, I have never attached batting or come anywhere close to finishing a block. I could use a shot of confidence and a flash of inspiration along about now.

"I'm ruling out circles," I decided.

"Rectangles and squares are good," agreed Weather (the brat had already whipped up a practice block by the time we visited the exhibit).

"I'm also ruling out Japanese characters lest I mistakenly communicate something that would offend someone."

"Not offending anyone is a good idea," agreed Weather, "although it is somewhat out of character for you."

We later learned that the Yokosuka Support Center is located on the ground floor of the building adjacent to the Mercure Hotel, so we were right next door to the board meeting the entire time we were viewing the quilt exhibit.

Duh.

Enduring Memories: More Reflections on the Tokyo Quilt Show

The more I think about it, that quilt that captured the biggest chunk of my time, attention, and heart at the Tenth Annual Tokyo Quilt Show was not a baby quilt but a scrapbook quilt.

I've had lots of time to think about it, too, while culling through the hundreds of photographs my friends and I snapped at the Tokyo Dome that day. No one but me seems to have taken a picture of that quilt and, alas, I found the details so attractive and compelling that apparently I forgot to step back for a second and capture the entirety of the piece.

The best I show you in a single glance is roughly a quarter of the quilt.

Masako Wakayama calls her creation "My Quilt Journeys".  Right away we see she's been to Paris, New York, and India (those elephants on the left).  The messages on those muslin postcards are written in English.  Although I'd be hard-pressed to say exactly why, I have the sense the postcards are addressed to her children.



The colors Wakayama used are the same shades I used in the family room of our Rockbridge Avenue house in Norfolk. Maybe that's why the quilt caught my eye.


A second wave of nostalgia washed over me when I read "People travel to search for what they want and return home to find it."  I hope that turns out to be the case for me.  But wait!  Wakayama reminds me I want to visit Shanghai and Russia first.

This week my friends and I plan to visit Nippori Textile Town in Tokyo. Maybe I should stock up on more fabric with an eye toward creating a scrapbook quilt to help me remember my years in Japan.

The Ancient Mariner is handier with a needle and thread than I will ever be. Perhaps I can just design the quilt and convince him to do the actual work . . .

On The Tenth Annual Tokyo Quilt Show, Stout Amish Women, and Riding the Green Car

This started out as a short paragraph introducing a slide show of dozens of quilts I photographed at the Tokyo Quilt Show last week before my camera's battery expired.  But brevity has never been my strong point.  While assembling the slide show – a tedious task without College Boy here to point out shortcuts while rolling his eyes at my ineptitude – I realized that only two of you would ever get around to viewing those pictures.  This thought was a bit irksome at the cost (time as money)/benefit level so I extracted a few pictures to share with everyone.

Our quilt show party this year included seven American and four Japanese ladies. Usually the Americans travel to Tokyo on the Keikyu train line which, during the morning rush hour, means dangling from a strap and trying to score a pocket of oxygen in a crush of commuters until at least Yokohama and sometimes as far as Shinagawa. Knowing we were going to be on our feet all day wandering around the Tokyo Dome, we decided to spend an extra 950 yen for reserved seats on the JR train line. Had I known how easy it is to reserve a seat, I might have read a lot more books on my journeys last year. We bought the upgrades at an electronic kiosk on the train platform, climbed on a green car when the train pulled into the station, found vacant seats (they were plentiful), and then pressed our train cards against the little screens over our seats until the lights changed from red to green. Take note, AmTrak.

We went to the quilt show on a Wednesday to avoid the weekend crowds. A lot of other people had the same idea.

Quilt shows always seem to feature a special exhibit that you’re not allowed to photograph. The Obama quilts at the 2009 Yokohama show are a prime example.  This time it was Amish quilts from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries on loan from German and Australian collectors. The exhibit also included photographs of modern Amish people (is that an oxymoron?) and two stout Caucasian women in Amish attire stitching a quilt for the edification of throngs of onlookers. “They can’t be real Amish women,” I observed, “since you can’t get from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to Tokyo via horse-and-buggy.” Artistic Explorer suggested the ladies were Mennonites.

In any case, the Amish exhibit made me feel queasy, like I had swallowed a mouthful of scrapple.  What would Homer think if he traveled through time and space to find himself gazing at relics of Ancient Greece in the British Museum?  A little queasy I think.  Just before beating a hasty retreat from that exhibit, I had the distinct impression I was viewing the remnants of US culture from the other side of the planet several hundred of years after my country ceased to exist.  This was not one of the remnants I would choose were I running that museum.

And yes, I do believe I just compared myself to Homer. Eyes are rolling in heaven today.

Here are a few things that tickled my fancy:

A quilted bag in the shape of a guitar

This quilt (above) recalls a pilgrimage to some of Japan's most famous shrines and temples. Nowadays pilgrimages are mostly undertaken by retired Japanese over the age of 60 with the aim of making merit for their next life. My friend Nagasaki-san's husband made one of these pilgrimages with his 80-year old mother and then did it all over again on foot. What a lovely tradition.



The Jazz Quilt



This one is made of linen squares.  I bet it's fun to iron.

The London Underground

Lavish color carried the day in the Original Design category

Vendors' stalls horse-shoed the exhibit three aisles deep on three sides. Two different vendors offered Peko-chan and Poko-chan dolls but were asking 25,000 yen (about $300 these days) per pair. Too pricey for the likes of me. Dr. T thinks I can get them a lot cheaper if I track down the shops where the vendors normally conduct business.

Oh boy. A new quest.

And here's that slide show for Geraldine and JoAnn:

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.