2020 Tokyo Dome quilt show (1)

Back again for another year ... A great place to meet old friends and make new ones, get in lots of walking, and even more inspiration...

First, we were off to the partnership quilts.

This year, both mine and Queenie's blocks were in the earlier sections.

My owl and his two cardinal buddies are in the center of the bottom row.

I thought this arrangement a rather strange mixture of owls and rabbits. A few of the rabbits have hopped down among the owls, but other than that, there doesn't seem to be much organization between style or color.

Each year the project of assembling the blocks is taken on by a group connected to a well known teacher. A few years ago, the size of the blocks was made smaller, possibly to lower the total number of quilts to be made.

I would think having more blocks to work with would provide more options for arrangement...

Queenie's cat is resting on a sofa. If I was trying to find her block by looking for her flag, I would have had to look at each quilt much more closely.

The theme being a favorite animal meant lots of pets, either dogs or cats seemed to take over many of the quilts.

Tanya's block found its way into a quilt of mostly cats and dogs.

Not a very good picture but it seems this quilt tried to feature lighter blocks in the center with a bit darker border.

Though there are lots of repeat design blocks, the arrangement gives the feeling of much more variety.

Cynthia's block is toward the center of the top row.

This quilt, too seems to have at least begun with a plan to put blue backgrounds in the center surrounded by orange tints and then moving out to white, pink and brown.

Mostly dogs and cats in this one.

This quilt has a lot of pandas and seems to have featured green backgrounds,

I think the path of footprint blocks gives the quilt more interest.

On the other hand, these rows of owls seem to get lost in the monotony of the repetition.


All in all, though the theme seemed to offer many possibilities, there were quite a few looking like this one.

I also noticed that, unlike in the past, there were blocks with three-dimensional features. Some were stuffed to stick up or had moving ears or hanging tails. Quite a few embroideries included beads or bowties.





Part of the exhibit included special displays. There were some British museum quilts and those had detailed information in both English and Japanese.

I was looking for a quilt by Yoko Saito to post for my blogging friend, Isa, when I came across an exhibit of "Mary Poppins" quilts.

Only the main work on display was by Saito-sensei.

The rest were the work of her students.

Of course there was plenty of Japanese "taupe" but the fancy detail I enjoyed a few years ago in a Peter Rabbit theme, was missing.

This is a little village at the foot of the hanging.

                                                      Student's work...

I may have to go back and read Mary Poppins again to see how all these picture quilts fit the story...

I hope to post more later once I get my pictures sorted.