More goodness from the Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival!
Look at all those lovely shades of blue! Indigo was widely used for fabric dying in Japan, hence the reason many traditional Japanese textiles are blue.
Apologies for the sub-par composition on this shot. Definitely not one of my best. But look at all those varying shades of indigo. And it’s a traditional Japanese wave pattern that can be found in fabric patterns, needlework, and even handmade textured paper.
What’s up next? Photos of the special exhibit on indigo and the antique vintage (anyone know which term would be correct?) really old textiles on display.
May life continue to inspire you,
Miss Kaizer
It’s time for the first post showing the phenomenal detail work on some of the quilts at the Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival. First up? The Goldfish quilt originally posted here. (I don’t know what the actual name of the quilt is because I didn’t take any pictures of the signs next to the quilts, so Goldfish is my title.)
‘ello, fishie! (Make sure you imagine that in an Eliza Doolittle pre-makeover voice. Sounds better that way, I promise.) Seriously, though, look at this thing: piecing, applique, embroidery, hand beading, free motion quilting…all on a variety of fabric types.
You can tell, if you look closely enough at this photo, that there is satin and a thin rayon fabric (stretchy, slidey, and nearly impossible to work with – at least for me) stitched together in some of the most beautifully executed curved seams I have ever seen. I need to take lessons from this guru of the needle. And the stippling…oh my word, the stippling.
I wish I had gotten a better shot of this border. But have you ever seen the lighting in a convention center? Garbage. Combine that with trying to get the shot as quickly as possible so as to not get run over by a pack of obasans (pack? gaggle? herd? if you know, please tell me) and you get a photo with a narrow depth of field when that totally isn’t what you’re going for.
But enough griping. This border is seriously awesome. Forget typical binding…it’s a three dimensional finish, really enhancing the overall impression that the quilt is a framed painting rather than a quilt. And I cannot imagine the amount of time it must have taken to make sixteen of these cords by hand. (Four per side by four sides equals 16, right?) The workmanship that went into this is just remarkable.
May these quilts continue to inspire you!
Miss Kaizer
Self-restraint on a Herculean scale – that is the best way to characterize my shopping at the Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival. Of course, it helped that most booths were so crowded that I couldn’t have gotten near anything if my life had depended on it. But the things I did get were either phenomenal deals or just too awesome to pass up.
First? A piece of fabric printed with vintage floursack advertising on it. I’m going to make it into a bag, but I’m not sure what for. And knowing how long it takes me to finish projects, it will be 2012 before we all see it again…ahem. I also picked up metric ruler trim – I’m sure you have seen the ones with inches, but metric? That was a first for me. And a meter of it was only about $1. Score! I also got three meters of lace for just a couple of dollars. Woo-hoo! To feed my sashiko obsession, I got two bundles of sashiko thread for $5 each. I don’t know how many yards of thread there is in each bundle, but I know it’s a lot. They also had sashiko thread for sale in varying shades of indigo, and I almost got a variety pack – 8 bundles of thread varying from off-white to nearly-black-navy, but I was a good girl.
As I was trudging away from the sashiko thread, bound and determined to not turn around, I saw a basket on the floor filled with old wooden thingies (yeah, there has to be a better name for that – lemme know if you come up with one). They look like they were used to wind thread for weaving or spinning or something. I plan on using them to store my sashiko thread. Vintage Japanese crafting goodies? Oh, yes! I’m a happy girl. And the people running the booth gave me the fabric scraps you see in the picture. Two of each color. I have to find the perfect project for these, cuz they’re totally fabulous. Again, we probably won’t see them until 2012.
The final find of the show? Thread nippers. I have been watching the Cutting Tools 101 videos over on Threadbanger, and on one of the videos couture designer Kenneth D. King stressed the importance of not using your shears to trim threads. Why? Because you will most likely wear a dull spot into your scissors. When I heard that, a lightbulb clicked in the old noggin – so that’s why my scissors don’t cut as well as they used to! So I had been looking for a good pair of thread trimmers, and I stumbled across a super-sharp $4 pair at the show. Done and done!
All in all, I was very pleased with the goodies I got. But next time I think I’m going to go shopping for more hours in the day so I can actually do something with all this stuff.
Until next time, may life continue to inspire you,
Miss Kaizer
Ok, Kaizer-peeps. Time for more quilts from the Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival.
You absolutely have to see the detail on this quilt. It is fabulous.
Ooooh, lovely!
Keep checking back for more. May life continue to inspire you!
Miss Kaizer
Last weekend I attended the Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival. I had been looking forward to this show for quite some time, but I didn’t end up enjoying it as much as I had hoped. Why? It was the first weekend of the show and it was crowded! Like rush hour subway crowded. The biggest problem? Most of the people attending the show were obasans – obasan is the Japanese word generally meaning “old women”, but has come to carry a different connotation: pushy old bag. Let me just say, I have no problem with anyone in this world because of their age, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, etc. I have a problem with people when they are rude or nasty people. It just so happens that obasans are some of the pushiest, rudest people I have ever encountered. And the Tokyo Dome was choc-a-block full of them. You know how peopole say when you ask God for patience you don’t just become more patient, you are put in a situation that requires you to be patient? Um, yeah. They were talking about this quilt show.
I prefer, when I want to take a picture of a quilt, to not have any people blocking half of that quilt. So yeah, since some of them were so large and the area where they were hanging was so high-traffic, I had to wait for up to ten minutes in each spot for that split second where there were no people in the frame. Yeah, like I said, an exercise in patience. But I did it all for you guys! And the experience of working with my father in convention and expo photography has made me the master at getting people-free shots in some unbelievably crowded places. Thanks, Dad!
Here are a couple of my favorites:
Yeah, this whole thing was yo-yos. I shudder to think of sewing so many yo-yos by hand. Ouch.
And this one is a fabric recreation of Shibuya crossing, the busiest crossing in the world. It’s the same crossing they drive through during the chase scene in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, and the same crossing where Party Boy danced in a silver thong in Jackass: The Movie. Yep, classy cinematic references.
This is a very small sampling of the quilts I photographed at the show. And some of these quilts deserve a post of their own – the detail is stunning. I will try to post more pictures of these marvelous creations at least once a week for the next few months or so. And of course I will have a post just for the cool goodies I snagged while shopping at the show.
May life continue to inspire you,
Miss Kaizer
Tokyo Quilt Festival | Miss Kaizer | 
February 8, 2010 6:03 am | 
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