Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival 2015 - 2 Flowers

In my second post about Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival 2015 I will be focusing on flowers.
Most of these quilts were entered in the contest.

These were the largest flowers I saw.

Mikyung Jang (Korea)

A double wedding ring quilt with interesting centres, note the feathered leaves.

 出口清美＊Kiyomi Deguchi

 This colourful quilt has a 3D effect.

宮下季久代＊Kikuyo (?)Miyashita

This floral display was created by one of the 57 famous quilters whose work was featured in a special section.

I like the off the centre design, and the hand quilting was fabulous.

吉野恵美子＊Emiko Yoshino

Back to the contest. In the Traditional section there were many medallion quilts.
This one was stunning from a distance and up close, too. A beautiful mix of piecing, appliqué and quilting.

直井トシイ＊Toshii Naoi

Apart from the perfectly planned design, this quilt had a nice shading in the foundation fabric.

菅谷康子＊Yasuko Sugaya (?)

Here you have a modern twist to flowering trees, or are they fruit trees?

 赤田千恵子＊Chieko Akada

Making Suffolk puffs, or yo-yos, is a great activity when you have 'time on your hands', in a waiting room e.g., but then you come home and have to put them all together...

A bed size quilt made by
杉田恵利子＊Eriko Sugita

These roses had a nice sharp look about them.

藤原順子＊Junko Fujihara

Whereas these yellow ones were much softer in their shape.

佐藤君子＊Kimiko Sato
Lotus flowers

葛城正子＊Masako Katsuragi

I like these framed quilts; you can start with a centre panel and then add borders one after another till you have the size quilt you want!

村田久美子＊Kumiko Murata

This quilt was unusual in its design, and a real crowd stopper. Lovely quilting design.

 荒田美知世＊Michiyo Arata

Cats enjoy flowers, too.

関谷みよ子＊Miyoko Sekiya

and so do fish

川口康子＊Yasuko Kawaguchi

In this last photo there is a hint of what is to come in my next blog post - thread play!
Some flowers were simply created with quilting and embroidery

葛西和子＊Kazuko Kasai

Have you noticed how many small dots there were in the quilts?
Have you noticed how many quilts there were with circular motifs?
Have you noticed how uncertain I am about the pronunciation of the Japanese names?
Why don't you head over to my friend Tanya's blog and read her excellent text about these questions, and don't miss her great photos! Click here and here

Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival 2015 - 1 Partnership quilts

14th Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival 2015 is now on in Tokyo Dome.

Today, let me report on the Partnership quilts. You can read what these quilts are here.
The theme this year was 'Sweet', and could be interpreted as either cute and pretty, or a delicious snack.

For my own block I had selected the traditional Swedish peppermint flavoured candy stick known as 'polkagris'. This is what a real one looks like

and this is my fabric version, in sweet company. 

Julie of My Quilt Diary made her sweet humming bird have a drink of sweet nectar. Please note the tiny appliquéd wings.

Tanya of By Taniwa had her sweet bumble bees flock around the sweet honey in the hexagon honeycombs.

Pamela (of Hokkaido Kudasai) made a bird that turned its back to cakes and feasted on a sweet worm instead.

People knelt down to read the text on the sweet  dandelion block by  Kippy SoMature.

Here is a handful of other blocks

 The sweet baker

 Redwork yummies

Felted whipped cream!

 Why are sumo wrestlers so fat? Because they dream of ice cream!

 What happens if you eat all these sweet things? Your teeth rot!

 Better stick to a healthy snack like rickrack watermelon

or at least a cake topped with fresh fruit, even the ants have sweet teeth...

Next I'll report on a floral feast, until then, sweet dreams and sweet sewing.

WIPW - Growing Red, Growing Old

Work In Progress Wednesday, my weekly report on needlework projects, today contains:

Pile 'em On
I parked a few stray thread ends in the circle and worked more pulled stitches in the 'flames' going out from the circle.

TASTy Beads Galore
This time I used TAST #98 Beaded Shell Chain to stitch the stem and the flowers.

Growing Red
This project is now completed.
First let me show you details of the latest wool embroidery. The fabric is a beautiful wool crepe that has been a delight to stitch.

From that embroidered fabric I then constructed a special waistcoat, called chanchan-ko'. Mine is a modern version.

Such a red waistcoat, often wadded, was in former days in Japan, presented to those who had reached three score. It was a sign that they had taken a back seat and let the younger generation take over work, responsibilities and power.

Or it might be seen as a warning sign - here comes someone who is a bit gaga, do odd things and must be given leeway...

However old I've grown, I hope I will be given plenty of odd, gaga leeway in my future embroidery projects, and I have no intention of letting anyone take over my needlework, responsibilities of my sharp scissors or power over my stitching fingers.

I am also so pleased that my chanchan-ko goes well with the collar and cuffs completed earlier.

WIPW - Growing Redder

In Japan, New Year is celebrated over more days than in many other countries, and a popular way to spend the first days of the new year is 'ne shogatsu', roughly translated as a sleeping New Year. It means you just relax, 'chill out' in front of the TV, eat and drink and take a nap, spend a leisurely time with the family and doze off whenever you feel like it...

When you spend the start of the year in such a lazy way, your needle and thread take a break, too, as does your blogging habits... Sorry I did not reply to any of the kind comments you posted on last week's WIPW post.

With New Year well behind me, and at least, now that the needle and thread have returned to some kind of normality, I can report the following Work In Progress:

TASTy Beads Galore
I added a flower made with TAST #37 Beaded Hedebo Stitch.

Pile 'em On
Just a bit of progress on the Window Filling pulled work.

Growing Red
A lot of work, however,  has gone into this project in the last couple of days. I am working with wool yarn on a thin red wool crepe.
There is a floral design

and here are some close-ups:

I drew the design with white charcoal pen directly on the fabric and then added or subtracted some details as the fancy took me while stitching. This is a very relaxing way to work.