Tokyo quilt festival 2019

If you have the opportunity to go to the show, I highly recommend it. One of the many interesting things I found about Tokyo was that it has a lot of opportunity for amateur crafting, which I like to do. I can also buy plenty of fabric in China to use for quilting at the fabric markets here.

Here is a picture of all my fun fabric purchases the batiks at the top right are from Thailand. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Many of the Original Design quilts this year were much freer than ever before in Tokyo. See for yourself. This invitational category includes the works of 52 leading contemporary quilt artists from Japan.

Here are some of those outstanding quilts. This is a big deal every year. The winners are behind roped barricades and it's almost impossible to get a photo through the crowds. Close menu.

Patricia Belyea. This, believe it or not, is also a landscape! The gold one in the middle of this magnificent quilt is a depiction of this traditional kimono motif. Roses and clematis are definitely not Japanese, but this composition is! These two immigrant flowers also bloom at the same time, and are slowly being welcomed into the Japanese artistic pantheon as a symbol for summertime.

This fabulous thing is also a classic seasonal reference. A whole red snapper is the traditional good luck dish people feast on when celebrating milestones, and this small multi-media quilt captures the delight of that occasion perfectly.

I returned to this quilt again and again to try and get a picture of the whole thing, but it was mobbed three-deep all day long. Nobody could resist patiently waiting to get close enough to examine all the different kimonos, to see for themselves that no two were alike.

I finally went back a few days later and snagged this photo during the nanosecond it was free of admirers! Everyone is invited to this meet-up, no matter where you come from. Okay, YAY, Part Two , with more amazing quilts and some detail shots so you can marvel at the techniques is now posted!

Awesome Stuff To Do , Just Writing mystery books set in Tokyo is mostly what I do, but I also blog about the odd stuff I see every day in Japan. I also host a travel site called The Tokyo Guide I Wish I'd Had, so if you're headed to Japan and want to check out the places I take my friends when they're in town, take a look!

Oh, these are just beautiful! I especially like the first one and the fish one. I have quilting friends I wish were more internet friendly so I could forward this to them.