Quilts from the Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival - Bright and Modern

When they said free wifi at the hotel we stayed at in Tokyo, they meant patchy wifi in the lobby, not in your room.  It was not great for blog posts etc.
I would like to share some more of what we saw at the quilt show - it was amazing and inspirational.  There were so many quilts, too many to blog about, so I have decided to focus on just a few in each blog post.  The quilts in this post have a modern feel to them and are bright.
This quilt was in the original design category, it does not have a name in English characters, nor do I know the quilter. It involves several piecing and quilting techniques - it has courthouse steps, paper piecing, and appliqué.

The paper pieced elephant and seal was one of my favourite blocks in the quilt.

Here is a close up of the steps.  One of things we really noticed about the Japanese style, was the blocks had not been pressed into submission and as a result the quilt blocks had a 3D aspect to them.

Also adore the bird with the musical note in it's mouth.

And because I live in Wellington, I could not resist the quilt called An Optician's Shop by Pachiko Yoshida, with the reference to Wellington in it.  Made me wonder what the back history to it was.

This quilt had embroidery and appliqué.

And lastly for this post, Square Font.  I love text fabric and this quilt with all the pixelated letters by Kumiko Fujita was amazing.  Kumiko is a quilt artist, quilt book author and textile designer.  She designed the First of Infinity range for Lecien which I loved so much.

And a close up...I love the Alphabet Song fabric that has been included (I bought some while I was in Japan, shhhh don't tell).

Day 2 - Tokyo and the Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival

We are near the end of Day 2 in Japan (counting full days here) and are on the Shinkansen train to Kyoto for the weekend. 

This morning was spent in Nippori (fabric town), most of the time in Tomato (a fabric shop).  There are 5 different Tomato stores within 1 minute walk of each other.  The main one we visited has 4 floors of fabric.  We will be going back again - it was amazing!

The afternoon was spent at the Quilt Festival.  Many of the quilts and fabrics are beige based.  I have never seen so many shades of beige!  The quilts were beautiful, but being a lover of colour not really my cup of tea.  

One of the stand out quilts for me is this quilt with the hearts.  The name of the quilter is not supplied in roman lettering so I am unable to attribute the quilt to the quilter here.  If any one knows who it is by I would love to know.

And a close up:

As well as the quilts there are also lots of stall selling fabrics and related goodies.  This photo is of a stall that specialised in vintage fabrics and sewing goods and Kawaii.  Be still my heart!  I lusted after many of the items in this stall!

Just ordered a bag of macadamia nuts on the train and they came with crunchy cheese - note to self - crunchy cheese is not nice!!