Tokyo Dome Quilt Show - part 5

Original Design Catagory

Ayame (a variety of Iris) 

By Takeyama with lots of machine work.

This Spider Lily was created by Hayashi. Also with machine work.

This "Witch's Calendar was created by Kikuma and is all hand done.

The title is at the lower edge. This is all hand done by Takeda.

                   Sorry, I didn't get the title. I guess I was too busy looking at those tiny appliqued dots.

This quilt was made by Saita.

                                                                 Vines of Life  by Ueno

Caribbean Paradise by Date.           A fine Mola-style piece of work.

"Torobi = 50th Anniversary" By Murakami.  I wish I could have been able to read the explanation that went tith the quilt. My 50th anniversary is this year but there is no way I could create something like this to mark the event!

Afternoon Shower in Red ... by Ishii

This is a detail of the slashed technique.

Temptation of Red

By Sato.

The picture doesn't really do it justice.

"Enclosed With a Thought" or (Thinking of you) by Miai

It may be original but looks a lot like a "Dear Jane" to me.

"Where Notes Went"  by Fukushima.  All this pale Japanese taupe is the pieced background of many white notes floating about. 

                                              "Dancers" by Yabe, another fine Mola-style quilt.

                                                     "Benefit of the Sunshine".    Nozawa

                                                               "Swing Jazz" by Okamatsu

                                                                       "Arigato" by Ozaki.

This should be the last of the pictures but I find that I still have some more that I failed to connect to a catagory.

                                                                    This is by Matsuo

I think this was called My Baltimore or something like that. It was probably among the traditional quilts but I sadly failed to take notes on it as to the quilt artist. I tend to look more closely at the handwork rather than the signs written all in Japanese. My apologies to the quilter but I thought you might like to see it anyway.  

                                                             My Allstars 9 Patch by Hashiba.

                                                    "For You Arigato" by Sakai.

                                                             "Nostalgia" by Yoko Ueda

                                     These cats are by Akashi. There was sashiko quilting

'

                                              "Monmaruto in Dawn" by Watanabe

By the time I got to the end, the Auld Lang Syne had finished playing and the announcements were hinting that it was time for the viewers to wend their way back up those bleacher stairs to the exit. 

In all, it was a great show, though it is hard to believe that with all the preparations made to put it together, they can't find one person who could translate at least the names of the participants into English. Then the title "International" could take on more true meaning .

Snow is falling. My evening meeting has been postponed. The ASIJ quilt awaits my attention. Time to shut my laptop and get to serious business.

Tokyo Dome Quilt Show - part 4

Traditional quilts

The "traditional" quilts were truly amazing. They were also very creative and all but three were hand-quilted.

Perhaps the very word, "traditional" speaks to the Japanese as "old style" and that may mean by hand. 

Certainly, quilters living here are as challenged as I am for space and I doubt many have a "sewing room" or any room that could be dedicated to the making of quilts.

I can picture them sitting on tatami, a quilt spread over their lap as they work.

                                                                  By Matsumura Akiko

                                                                    by Junko Niwa

                           "Sweet Fifteen" by Miyuki Hamba.    This is all made of tiny hexagons!

by Sumiya?  (or could be Sumitani)

This Baltimore Album quilt is all done in Japanese taupes by Suzuki.

The most incredible part of this quilt is in the quilting.

This is a detail. All hand done by Tanaka.

"Rose Bouquet to You" by Tamai.

White on White by Origata.

This was one of only three machine quilted pieces in this category.

This, too was quilted by machine. 

Sorry but even looking at the kanji, my husband was unable to figure out how the name might be in Romanji.

Another compas quilt entitled "Blue Jade" by Nagatani.

Junior Category 

I only took one picture of these quilts. This one was made by Higashi Fukuzawa Middle School.

This is called "Apples Tree"  Each apple was done by a different girl and they are all quite cleaver. The tree trunk is in brown wood-like fabrics and there is a caterpillar along the bottom edge.

I happened to run into the teacher of the girls who made this quilt.

She (on the left) is from Yokohama, and was with her teacher (on the right) who lives in Okinawa.

I still have enough for one more post. 

Meanwhile, check out my friend Cynthia's blog. A Quilter by Night . She,also made two trips and got many good pictures that I missed.

Tokyo Dome quilts - Part 3

Wa quilts

If you are wondering, what is "Wa", 

It is not the exclamation when you see these wonderful quilts, but a word that has come to mean "harmony and peace".

Those who have been reading my blog a while know about my love affair with kasuri and many of these quilts contain LOTS of kasuri fabric.

I looked at kasuri fabrics in some of the shops and, judging from the prices, many of these quilts are worth a small fortune in material alone!

Kasuri Diamond Flower.

Toinie Nagano

Here is a detail of the same. 

All those hexagons!

(Irene, that would take a lot of Wednesdays)!

A close-up of "Our Beautiful Earth  North Ground I.

"Chrystal Snow"

By Akasugi-san

Kazaguruma, or pinwheels, by Motoyama-san.

The title of this was a bit too hard for my poor Japanese to figure out or my husband to explain. The kanji for the quilter's name could also be read more than one way ...("Soma ni mangoku").

See why we need names in romaji!! My guess is Tanida-san.   The whole quilt is stitched in Sashiko.

This one by Yamamoto-san also was quilted with sashiko stitches and some embroidery.

 By Endo-san. I didn't get the title.

"Flow of Time" by Ono-san.  This has some amazing detail and lots of kanji in applique.

This also has a time theme ... something like being thankful 365 days. It is made by Masukawa-san.

There is a lot of kasuri in this too and you can see the kanji for spring, summer, fall, and winter, along with pictures of rabbits with seasonal poses ... mosquito coil, blossoms of the season, kite flying, moon viewing and the like.

"Blown by the Wind" by Mawatari-san. (Another hard name to figure out)

I was more blown away by the quilts in this category.

And here is one more I failed to record but is too pretty to leave out. 

There is one lovely thing about all these quilts, they were all hand quilted. I feel that even though this kasuri had been cut into many pieces, the handwork showed respect to the hands that had dyed and woven that fabric so long ago.

More to come.....

Tokyo Dome quilt show - part 2

Sensei's quilts 

In the middle section of the display are quilts made by a number of featured teachers. This was the only section where quilter's names were were written in "romaji" or Roman letters. Some of the titles were also written in English  (and others I have translated the best I could).

The first I searched out was made by Yasuko Kuraishi who has been a member of my international quilt group for many years.

It is called "Country Road, Sketches of Country Journey"

It seems each section of the display had a different theme.

This quilt called "Encouragement for Travels" was made by Yoko Sekita.

Looking closely at the appliqued characters in the center is very entertaining. In the right front there is Little
Red Riding Hood holding the wolf.

This is a detail of a cat quilt made by Naoko Suzuki.

I believe she made a cat quilt last year too. As in that one, this is all fused and sewed over all by machine.


I couldn't get far enough away for a full view because of the crowd at the time I went first.

Colored Autumn
By Chinami Terai


I like the effect of these appliqued autumn leaves.

Again, only a section,
this is "Restart" by Chiyo Hosokawa.



I believe she also did something similar last year. Kind of a Hawaiian style applique of rather intricate designs, this looking like a wave design and people on surfboards.

Flower Garden in Early Summer, by Keiko Miyauchi.






Look at all that detailed applique

and the trapunto in the green areas. All hand done.

Detail of a quilt by Naoko Hayashi.

It seems one of the sensei categories was flowers.

This is another detail ... Didn't get close enough to get the name.

This is another detail.
I believe, "To Keep On" by Naoko Takeshita.

and another detail
by ???

Even the outer walls/partitions held quilts.

 These camellias were made by Ms Takeyama.

Another theme seemed to be circles.



This is Alphabet of Circle  by Kumiko Fujita.

I have made many alphabet quilts over the years but never one with letters like these. Very cleaver.

Emiko Toda Loeb always makes two-sided quilts.

This is named "Roundness" and has been specially hung so both sides can be viewed.

Floating in the Wind, by Mitsuyo Akita

There was a section for framed quilts and one for hand bags.

There may have been quilted clothing too.

Maybe another viewer will have pictures of those.
They seemed to be quite popular judging from the crowds viewing them.

Nearly every Japanese quilt magazine I have seen includes instructions for making bags.


More is yet to come. I hope your feet are less tired than mine were at this point in the show.