Tokyo Quilt Show

I managed to miss a week or so, with no access to the internet or limited access via Ipod touch. So this is a catch up. My kids and I flew back to Tokyo where my elder son went missing for three days while he attended 3 Jazz gigs and went to 7 Jazz bars (despite being under age in Japan). His brother tells me that he came home at midnight and was still in bed when I got up.

I caught up with  Chris Kenna from Wellington and the 'Toerags' from Lower Hutt and we went to Tokyo Quilt Show. I first tried to go on the Saturday but after seeing the  queues to get in, went off with my son to the Hakone area (near Mt Fuji) for the day. I finally got to the quilt show on Monday and it was amazing. Although the Japanese quilters are not so hot in the non-traditional 'art quilt' area and some of the machine quilting was pretty bad, the hand applique and hand quilting sections would blow us out of the water. Here are just a few that caught my eye. I'm doing a talk for Cotton On quilters in Wanganui on saturday so will add more photos as I get myself organised.

Here is a picture of the inside of Tokyo Dome with the booths in the middle and the crowds of people. The main people to watch for are the little older ladies. They are a head shorter than me so about 4ft nothing and their elbows are at kidney height. They have no qualms about bulldozing their way through.

Here is the winning quilt - Twelve Days of Christmas' by Osami Gonohe. Most of the day, you couldn't get closer than 4 metres because of the crowds but I stayed till closing time one night so I could get a shot of it without the crowds.

Above is what it normally looked like.

Above is 2nd place winner which was even more amazing in my opinion. Unbelievable points!It is by Emiko Yoshino

But what about this quilt in the Tradtional quilt category which didn't get a prize? The pieces are smaller than my fingernail (don't worry, I'm not touching it, my finger is about a cm away). I'm sorry, the catalogue name is in Japanese.

I think this is based on Ainu decorative work. The Ainu are a tribe from Hokkaido.

This is made using a lot of antique indigo cottons

I think I like the detail even more

This looked like a prizewinner till you see the one that actually won!

 This quilt is incredible - it is - Scherenschnitte (Chris Kenna told me) - like a papercut.  It didn't win a prize!

Centre of the Scherenschnitte quilt. 

There were also a large number of amazing quilts from famous Japanese quilt makers who were invited to show their prizewinning quilts. The one below is called 'Nostalgia' and is by Tsuneko Shimura.