Testing Clover's Embroidery Threader

Do you remember one of my purchases at Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival was an embroidery threader?

On the left is a traditional threader, easy to find anywhere (I would think), and on the right, with a green plastic handle, Clover's embroidery threader.

They are used in the same way; inserted into the eye of the needle, loaded with thread and pulled out. The difference is that Clover's version is suitable for long-eyed needles (crewel, chenille, tapestry, darners, larger beading).

Now a similar threader can of course be made with a piece of paper:

This method is often found in embroidery books (Mary Thomas's Dictionary of Embroidery Stitches, The Essential Guide To Embroidery...)

★The advantage of the paper method is that the paper is thin and a single strand of thread does not create any bulk.

★The advantage of Clover's threader is that it is sturdy and long lasting. 

I have found my new threader very useful for threading those short strands of thread, orts, I am trying to use on my Pile 'em On project.

WIPW - Back to work!

Work In Progress Wednesday. I enjoyed the quilt show, but it is nice to have time to work on projects myself again.

Pile 'em On
I began filling in a new 'flame' with Punch Stitch, but have not finished yet. The fabric is slightly uneven in the weave and I made a counting mistake. Just a thread too much here and there and the mistake is glaring you in the face. This has been a lesson in how important it is to have good light and count correctly. Never mind, Pile 'em On is for stress relief and should look 'messy' so it might just fit the bill!

TASTy Beads Galore
It was time for the TAST stitch #103 Beaded Butterfly Chain to be used for a plant.

New and Completed
This is a project I have not reported on before. The reason? It has been deep asleep on the UFO shelf for a long time.
It was started on a 45-minute workshop at Festival Of Quilts in Birmingham in 2013, but there was no time to complete it then, so it went into hibernation.  When I read my friend Tanya's report on how her protégé Yuma-kun had started on just such a quilt I decided it was time to finish mine.

This kind of quilt is called Happy Villages and is an original idea by Karen Eckmeier. It is so easy and great fun to make, I highly recommend getting her book.

This is my happy village:

 It has wetted my appetite for making other, more impressive villages and landscapes, but for now, this UFO is completed!

New and Completed
For my birthday I was given a subscription for this Swedish craft magazine.

It covers a lot of different crafts like woodwork and paper, as well as textile related craft. In this issue there was a pattern for stitched needle cases. I just had to try the pattern right away, and made these two, very simple ones:

I got the taste for making more, and make them more decorative with proper Swedish wool embroidery, maybe a bit of leather or fur, kavelfrans (napped edgings) and braided strings (kumihimo or lucet).

Have you had a good week?

Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival - 8 Things to take home

The quilts at Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival are of course not to take home (unless you happen to be the maker!); I showed you earlier that the quilted bags were fastened with wire.

However, there are plenty of traders who sell things, and you need not go home empty handed.

With a stash of fabric and thread fit to bursting, I had no intention of opening my purse to get any new stuff, until... Until I stumbled upon the Clover stand, that is. How it happened I don't know, but suddenly I was standing there with a little bag of

• beading needles - yes I need them
• a special embroidery threader, a new item - want to give it a try
• a flexible bar with a clip for inserting strings or elastics in trousers or bags - rememberd my old one was broken 
• 45˚ diamond templates - for a project in the near future

Please note this is not an advertisement for Clover, although I must say most of their goods are of high quality.

Then I walked out of the show, on the first day, with one more thing. This beautiful gift, a tatting lace necklace that my friend Tanya has made. Isn't it beautiful, and doesn't it look great with my sweater?

 When it is not around my neck, it has found a good place in my dictionary! Thank you, Tanya!

When I close my dictionary after having tried to decipher the quilters' names in kanji characters and write them in Roman letter, I also close this series of reports from Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival 2015, and hope to have some of my own work to show instead. 

Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival - 7 More quilts?! And more things?!

By now you are probably fed up with Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival.

Yes? Stop reading now.

Don't know? Well, here is a summery for you; this post contains:

• the winning quilts
• other quilts
• kogin
• whitework
• boutis
• Japanese embroidery

No? Then read on.

The Grand Prix, Best in show, went to

a quilt in indigo blue

三坂悦子＊Etsuko Misaka

Second prize went to this absolutely STUNNING quilt - a masterpiece if ever I saw one!

渡辺章子＊Akiko Watanabe

The prize for handmade quilt

川上亜矢子＊Ayako Kawakami

This quilt needed a lot of planning and fussy cutting

鬼塚美佐子＊Misako Onitsuka

Here a sample of the clever use of kimono fabric, to dress the lady in - a kimono!

市村静子＊Shizuko Ichimura

Every quilt show has some indigo quilts

古谷敦子＊Atsuko Furuya

A charming village quilt

植松章子＊Akiko Uematsu

Red and white is always striking

出家晴美＊Harumi Shukke

Amish quilts are popular, even when they are machine quilted

小圷サト子＊Satoko Koakutsu

Look how you can use the Buttonhole stitch on the machine for a nice accent.

池敬子＊Keiko Ike

A Japanese quilt show is not a show without a taupe quilt. This one features Tokyo Station, in celebration of the station's 100th anniversary.

内藤千鶴子＊Chizuko Naito

Handquilted Baltimore Album quilts are also popular

上坂和美＊Kazumi Uesaka

A lot of perfection and work has gone into this quilt.

清田澄枝＊Sumie Kiyota

Here is a quilt to inspire my friend of Hokkaido Kudasai! 

How many Mondays' worth of count would you need before you finished this quilt, Pamela?

田中福子＊Fukuko Tanaka

This famous artist never fails to amaze the crowds with her charming, lively and witty quilts.

関田陽子＊Yoko Sekita


NHK (the TV broadcaster) has recently shown a series of documentaries about Japanese fabric. In one of the programmes they focused on Kogin, the embroidery used to reinforce farmers' clothes in Aomori prefecture of northern Japan. At the show there was a display of such clothes and stitching. Some of my readers will recognise these items once on display at the Amuse museum in Tokyo.

If you want to try your hand at Kogin, Carolyn Foyley of caro-rose-creations has worked an impressive number of patterns and kindly made them accessible on her blog.

Famous embroidery artist Ayako Ohtsuka had some of her beautiful items on display

So did boutis expert Kumiko Nakayama Geraerts

Finally, a display of impeccable Japanese embroidery by

A word of warning, there will be one more post from Tokyo International Great Quilts Festival, but it's about things you take home, such as shopping!