13th Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival 2014 - Part 2

I spent another wonderful day at the show, meeting up with more amazing people, and was overwhelmed with it all = no energy to blog the same day.

Before reporting on that, let's return to the events of Day 1.

 As I mentioned before the show is held at Tokyo Dome, an indoor baseball arena.

Although the queue is long and you might have to wait twenty or thirty minutes to get in, everything goes on in an orderly manner. There are people to lead you right, security guards, a bag search and then you enter through a turnpike, one by one.

Partnership quilts
You can read the details for taking part in this charity quilt project here.
This time NHK had received 10519 blocks, and under the leadership of Kathy Nakajima, 82 bed size quilts of 130 blocks each were pieced, quilted and then displayed at the show by groups of volunteers. Great work! Thank you Kathy Nakajima and all who gave a helping hand. You can see a picture of Kathy in this blogpost.

Julie and I first headed to quilt #17

 

where her basket of roses can be seen in the top row.

Just a few blocks away, in the corner we found the block that Pamela of Hokkaido Kudasai had submitted.

 Next to each quilt is a list of names (or in Pamela's case, a description) and location of each contributor.

My Peace Dove with Olive Branch had flown into quilt #28

where it had joined a number of other creatures, dogs with flower wreaths or bears with flowers sprouting out of their noses! To make it fully clear that this block has Swedish connections, the Dove is carrying a blue and yellow flag and I am dressed in the Swedish national folk costume.

Here are some other blocks in various techniques (sorry for not mentioning the makers' names):

The Japanese Manga boom can be seen in these blocks, too!

More facts

Before we go on to the Japanese 'Wa' quilts here are some statistics for you.

1487 quilts were submitted for entry into the contest. 386 passed the second screening and made it to the show. Of 17 quilts from abroad, 2 were let in.

102 Traditional

72 Original Design

42 Wa (which means Japanese in either fabric (kimono silk, indigo...) motif (cherry blossoms, festivals...) technique (sashiko, origami...)

35 Junior

90 Framed (the 'quilts' must be inside a picture frame, many feature embroidery and no real quilting)

45 Bags

Wa quilts

Now for a feast of Japanese culture.

 秋光 by 伊藤トヨ子

 六角遊びを楽しんで　by 福西和代

 花窓(夜桜) by 小倉いち子

集う by 出町睦子 is made up of tiny balls of kimono fabric

 鎮守の祭りピーヒャララ by 渋谷きよみ

 ふくしまより　桜だより by 全田百合子

 秋の始まり by 松本紀代子

輝き by 松saki?靖枝

Julie is as impressed with this quilt as people were with Julie's stunning wearable quilt!

 藍のクラスター by 轟はる美

13th Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival, 2014 - Part 1

I was very fortunate to have been invited to attend the Opening Ceremony. I asked my friend Julie of My Quilt Diary to join me. Julie will also be reporting from the show so do head over to read her blog posts.

The show is held in Tokyo Dome, a gigantic indoor baseball field. The opening ceremony is a serious affair as you can see from these pictures.

 On the left are four men representing Tokyo Dome, NHK (the Japanese state run broadcasting company that is the organiser of the show), Yomiuri newspaper and other sponsors.
The lady in front of the golden folding screen is Kiko, Princess Akishino, a representative of the Imperial Family.
On the right you can see some other important guests, among them the Ambassador of Finland and his wife, with a translator behind them. Five of these people made speeches. Note how the officials wear white pompom ribbons and the guests red.

The show was officially opened by a ribbon cutting ceremony. Even the highly polished scissors are bedecked with ribbons, and look at the three attendants in the background; smart suits, perfectly knotted scarves, white gloves and one of them is holding the black lacquer tray on which the scissors are placed. That's formality for you!

Once all these ceremonies were completed, we were let onto the field to see the quilts. We had 45 minutes before the show opened to the public and the arena would fill up. Julie and I headed for the Traditional quilts of the Contest.

アラスカのダリア by 小坂妃佐子

感謝の贈物 by 山内京子

 オアシスから吹く風の庭 by 日比野香代子

Notice the quilt pattern.

テノチティトランの太陽 by 加納幹

This quilt is similar in colours but look at the fantastic pattern! The sashing is Mola quilting.

ヘキサゴンinダイヤモンド by 花田操

An organised crazy quilt.

 花と風車 by 伊藤千津子

Lovely Colonial knots!

至福の時間 by 枝野さとみ

Ms Edano has turned a traditional Amish pattern into a trapunto quilt!

バラの小径 by 中島豊子

Pure perfectionism!

フラワーカーニバル by 寺田矢枝子

Here is a detail of Suffolk Puff/yo-yo quilt. Can you see that they are all joined together?

 彩る by 土井直子
This is a Korean form of patchwork called Pojagi and a detail of the seams can be seen below.

春風の恵み by 中村崇子

Here is a detail of one of the very Japanese taupe quilts; flowers and bees.

I am sorry I have often shown just details rather than the whole quilts. People get in the way, the light is not always good (see the shadow of the first yellow quilt) or the quilts are so large you can not back away far enough to catch the entire quilt.

More tomorrow!

WIPW - Full Force Ahead

Work In Progress Wednesday is a smart way to work towards completing those unfinished needlework projects. Sharon B of Pintangle, who is the initiator of this project and kindly lets us link back to her website to be able to follow each other's progress, has announced that WIPW will include other projects as well. To find out more head over to Pintangle.

I abstained from stitching while I recovered from my nasty cold, and felt I had a lot to catch up on. It has been Full Force Ahead!

Kafferepet
I selected the coffee cup block and thought the floral pattern on the china should be reflected in the quilting stitch. So what would be a good ornamental stitch? I decided to bite the bullet and use a stitch that I have had problems with in the past; TAST #82 Spanish Feather Stitch

 

Swedish Cushion
Here, too, I felt like a 'daredevil' and challenged myself with TWO stitches, and ones that I had found troublesome in the past.
TAST #69 Buttonholed Double Chain Stitch,

I still found it tricky to do and as you can see it is not 'perfect'. The Buttonholed Double Chain is made up of two rows, well that is what double means, isn't it?!, but I tried to add a third and fourth stitch to fill in the bottom part of the design. Not so neat, but I'll let it pass.

 The second stitch was  #60 Diamond Stitch

It looks better in the narrow part of the design...
I have to accept that these two stitches are still a challenge.

News about NHK

13th Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival 2014

On Thursday January 23rd, the 13th Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival will open at Tokyo Dome. I will report from the event and hope to share a lot of great quilts.

This is what the Japanese programme flyer looks like:

 Every year a well-known Japanese quilter/teacher makes the quilt on the front. This year it is Yoko Saito who has made the charming Moomin quilt. Tove Jansson, the author of the children's books about Moomin and his mystic world, was born 100 years ago. Mooming is very popular in Japan and Yoko Saito has over 50 pieces of Moomin quilting in the show!
As a piece of side info, there is actually a Moomin bakery and cafe in the Tokyo Dome City complex. You can read about it here.

Other items of interest at the quilt show are:

• The quilt contest with stunning quilts, of course
• Lots of traders 
• The works of 60 famous (Japanese) quilters
• Shizuko Kuroha on what textile has taught her. She is famous for her beautiful blue quilts; you can see her quilting in the picture above.
• Five famous quilters share how they 'play with fabric'.
• The Partnership charity quilts (The Language of Flowers)
  
   
• Swedish Antique Wool Embroidery

I have had a bit of a hand in the Swedish Wool Embroidery being on show in Tokyo and feel so happy that these eight pieces could be on loan. Many thanks to Kulturen in Lund, the staff at the Swedish embassy in Tokyo and especially to Ms Miyako Hara and her staff at NHK.

If you have contributed to the Partnership quilt project it is likely that you have been sent a postcard like this. The number at the top indicates the quilt into which your block has been worked. I will be looking out for quilt #28!

The circled numbers at the bottom right corner mean that you are entitled to buy entry tickets at the reduced price of 1800 yen. Two tickets for each circle = four tickets.

Live TV broadcast
NHK will broadcast life from the quilt show on
Saturday 25th, 2.30 - 3.15 pm on channel BS Premium 103

Sutekini Handmade
NHK's craft programme Sutekini Handmade will feature Swedish Wool Embroidery (pin cushion, I think) on
Thursday 23rd, 9.30 - 9.55 pm on channel 3