17th Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival 2018, Part 1

For Japanese quilters I would say that one of the most important times of the year is here. Friends of quilting are flocking to Tokyo Dome, a gigantic baseball arena, where the 17th Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival is now being held.

I met up with my friends Tanya (of By Taniwa) and Julie (of My Quilt Diary) to explore the wonderful world of quilting.

First we checked the blocks we had contributed to the Partnership Quilt project. The organizers had received some 9000+ blocks, which volunteers had joined and quilted into 60 quilts. These are raffled off and the proceeds go to charity.

Julie's red cardinal sat high up.


Tanya is pointing out her tree, black against a colourful background.

My own block, with a round Swedish flag, was amongst cherry trees.
 On the wall next to the quilts is a chart of the names of the makers and a box into which one can drop a raffle ticket. One lucky winner for each quilt.

 Many blocks featured animals, insects, or even a tangle of kites!

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At last year's quilt show, Julie, Tanya and I set ourselves a task: make something Mola and have it ready for a Show and Tell at the festival in 2018. So here we were.

The first to finish the task was Tanya, who made this charming wallhanging of the 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac. Her stitching is so neat and the border fabric frames each block perfectly.

Julie made a show-stopper, a waistcoat superb:

Those who have followed my blog know I have been making a bag. At the Dome it made friends with a Mola tissue case - a gift from Tanya.

What inspired the three of us for this challenge were the quilts by Fumiko Nakayama.

I think I have seen at least one of her many quilts at every major show I have visited in Japan.

This year there is a special exhibition featuring MANY of her masterpieces.

Ms Nakayama has taken the technique of Mola and stretched it into many new motifs.

First, here are some examples of the traditional style:

Faces of the world.

Details of the invisible stitching and neat edges.

Then we saw how Ms Nakayama has used Mola technique to illustrate the famous literary work, The Tale of Genji:

As she is also an expert needlewoman she has incorporated many embroidery stitches in these framed pictures. For examples the snow on the pine trees is made of Colonial Knots,

and here she has added a panel of Japanese embroidery, Nihon Shishu

and in this case, needle woven stitches.

and surface stitches.
I felt as if I were in a sweetshop!

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I don't know why the Japanese are so fond of quilted bags, but at every quilt show you are bound to find some bags, or maybe, you can't really call them bags....

山田貴子＊Ms Atsuko(?)Yamada

made a piggy bag

原田恵津子＊Ms Harada

can carry her shop with her when she goes shopping!

田島明美＊Ms Akemi Tajima

let a tree grow on her city bag.

木澤直子＊Ms Naoko Kizawa

decorated her white bag with colourful Paraguayan nanduti lace.

 Finally I will show you a bag made by Japan's cat quilter No 1,
鈴木なを子＊Ms Naoko Suzuki

who also had in the show, this framed quilt

as well as this large quilt

These cats are made of appliqué fabric and black embroidery stitches.

I will take a break here and share more quilts with you tomorrow. Because of this, Sunday Stitch School will be cancelled.