22nd International Quilt Week Yokohama, 2014 - Part 3

This is a continuation of part 2 of the quilt show report from Yokohama, and it will feature the remaining of my pick of the show.

Traditional quilts have always been popular in Japan and here are some 'old' and some more 'modern'.

 日栄順子　Junko Hiei

The title is 'Log cabin is ∞!!'
As you can see the pattern has been used in 'endless ways' and in shiny silk as well! It shone beautifully under the spotlight.

 菅野成子 Nariko Sugano

If you fancy working with small pieces, maybe this is for you. The title is Piece Peace Piece.
Note the charming border.

 横田弘美 Hiromi Yokota

I thought my friend Pamela of Hokkaido Kudasai would have loved seeing this quilt, as she is herself working on a large impressive hexagon quilt.

 沖津明美　Akemi Okitsu

Here are some of the Flower quilts.
Both Julie and I stood and drooled in front of this quilt of dandelions.

 She probably enjoyed the complex piecework, and I the rich embroidery. Look at the fluffy dandelion seed balls.

 押野悠美子 Yumiko Oshino

These flowers are a bit similar, thistles. The fabric is Japanese, and I can just picture it coming from old recycled floor cushions.

 The quilter has used the fabric in an inventive way; back and front.

山村久子 Hisako Yamamura

Large and impressive with exotic flowers and plants.

 平谷久美子 Kumiko Hiratani

A favourite of mine! Lotus flowers and seed cups.

馬場八千代 Yachiyo Baba

 Among the Japanese (Wa) quilts this was a stunning picture of Miyajima shinto temple.

原田千代 Chiyo Harada

A masterpiece of craftmanship. Add to that crazy quilting, embroidery and beautiful material... and you can understand that I was drawn to this quilt.

有賀満里子 Mariko Ariga

Anyone who has followed the amazing work and documentation Carolyn Foley of Caro-rose Creations has made on Kogin embroidery from Northern Japan should recognise this kind of pattern darning. The title is Kogin Children. Making Kogin buttons is now very popular and the quilter has added a lot of them.

柴山みさ　Misa Shibayama

Finally I have this colourful tree full of wild life.

 鈴木美知子　Michiko Suzuki

I hope you have enjoyed my pick. Don't forget to head over to Julie Fukuda's My Quilt Diary to see her reports from the show.

22nd International Quilt Week Yokohama, 2014 - part 2

In my last post you saw flowers and animals on quilts.
They featured on the bags as well as you will see in this post!

Almost every quilt magazine or book published in Japan include instructions for a bag, and you can always spot a number of patchwork bags carried around at the show. This is therefore a popular category of the quilt contest.

Taupe bags by 赤平昭子　Kazuko Akahira

Colourful bag by 飯田奈緒美　Naomi Iida

Dogs also made their appearance on the bags, these three won the quilter a ribbon.

横山幸美　Yukimi Yokoyama

This was not found on a bag but on another popular category,

wearable quilts:

Made by Kim Su Jin (Korea)

 May I present the Best in Show?
A pink Mt Fuji can be seen peeping through a mass of clouds. My guess is that the clouds are made up of cotton fabric for summer kimonos, aka yukata.

吉田寿恵　Kotoe Yoshida

The winning quilt among the Traditional quilts was this red jewel in machine quilting. Who wouldn't want to have such a quilt as a bedcover in December?

池敬子　Keiko Ike

A prize was also awarded to this Korean quilter

The beautiful machine quilting/embroidery made this quilt look almost like a gigantic photograph.

Chang Mi Sun (Korea)

This quilt was made by 16 high school students - and maybe their teacher?
As you can see Mt Fuji is popular with everyone, and cherry blossoms, and cats, and green tea ...

These towers are not as high as Mt Fuji but cleverly made out of string and fusable web!

竹脇章子　Akiko Takewaki

This quilt was also in the Contemporary category, and made out of unusual material, too - woven rags of indigo.

杉山美紀江　Mikie Sugiyama

If there had been a Visitors' Choice, this stunning quilt would have got a high score. There were always crowds of people enjoying the beautiful sky and marvelling at the use of material.

 島田清子　Kiyoko Shimada

Like this man, I needed some time to see the 'point' of this quilt, called New York.

 The 'point' is of course that you can make a quilt of something you see every day as you open the door of your apartment. Check out the work put into making the wall paper, below.

森村悦子 Etsuko Morimura

In my next blog post I will show you some of the Traditional quilts, as well as the ones with a Japanese theme.

22nd International Quilt Week Yokohama 2014 - Part 1

The show is now over, and I should have blogged earlier about my visit with Julie of 'My Quilt Diary', but I have been having Blogger problems. I hope to be able to write this report without any trouble.

First of all I will recommend anyone to read Julie's excellent account of the visit. Click here for her first instalment.

This is the official guide, unfortunately all information except the title is in Japanese, but you can read the address to the website. I must admit that the organisers have put in some effort to make this year's show a bit more accessible to overseas visitors. At last there is a hint of 'international', with some staff speaking a bit of English, however, there is still much that could be improved. The guide, and the website, for example. Let's hope for next year...

Anyway, as Julie has already explained a lot of the quilts on display were by famous quilters, both from Japan and overseas, and in those display areas photography was not allowed. 

Julie then went on to write about the Mini-Mini Quilt challenge. She explained about the rules and showed a pick of her photographs. 

Here are some that I took, I wonder if you can spot the three pieces of challenge fabric (see Julie's blog for details):

 佐藤潤子  Junko Satoh

 神山タツ美　Tatsumi Kamiyama

This felt just right as more and more Seasonal displays are popping up everywhere in town.

 本田洋子 Yoko Honda

Julie and I then went on to see the Miniature quilts. In this challenge the quilts should measure 50 x 50 cm, and you need to enter your quilt in a category, Traditional, Contemporary etc, but there is no general theme.

Quilters often make their own theme though, for instance travel, food and flowers are popular. Let's begin with some animals:

'Maneki neko', these cats of good fortune are appliquéd against a pieced background.

 桑田千恵子 Chieko Kuwata (I think)

More and more are interested in Mola.

 大内明美 Akemi Ouchi

There were several entries where fluffy fabric had been used.

登内のり子 Noriko Noboriuchi (?)

This elephant evokes the quilter's memories of a trip to Sri Lanka.

安部由香　Yuka Abe

Here is a detail from  a quilt that was a real crowd stopper - I wasn't able to take a picture of the entire quilt. Ms Sakai enters her charming quilts every year. Plenty of embroidery to outline the charming figures.

界亜希　Aki Sakai

Flowers were also abundant on these Miniature quilts.

Camellias

 天間絹子　Kinuko Tenma

Details of embroidery. I was drawn to this quilt like a magnet as it reminds me of my own Kafferepet!

篠崎悦子　Etsuko Shiosaki

Exquisite flowers are growing here. See how beautifully the background wall can be seen through the cutwork.

 Delight in the detailed quilting and embroidery.

植田慶子　Keiko Ueda 

This quilter, whose name I can not pronounce, has made a stunning quilt to commemorate a trip to Venice.

城取佳恵　Yoshie Shirotori (?)

I am sorry to say I did not take a photo of the winning Miniature quilts (grand prix and semi grand prix).

More quilts tomorrow.