Friday, January 26, 2007

Tokyo Day One

A wonderful flight with a little bit of sleep and watching 'The Queen' with Helen Mirren. Flight took nearly 10 hours and the trip from the airport took another 3! Unfortunately as we couldn't check in till the afternoon and it was nine in the morning we had to start being tourist straight away. Fortunately the Tokyo International Quilt Show started at ten so after wrestling with the buttons (in a vending machine) outside a cafe and then eating a yummy soup I was ready to face the (quilting) masses.






Held at the Toyko Dome which usually houses baseball games - it is an interesting venue for a quilt show.

You enter at the top and then walk down through the seats to the floor below.The vendors are around the outside of the floor and the different exhibitions (colour coded) are in the centre.

When you need to take a break you buy a bento box (lunch pack) from here and then go and sit in the seats and watch the show from a distance. By now my feet were the most intensely painful part of my body and the jet lag was setting in so I sat and watched for quite a while.







Of course the quilts were amazing. The show website does better justice than my photos but here are a few that took my fancy. My favourites were exhibitions by master Japanese quiltmakers each with their own exhibitions but unfortunately you were not allowed to take photos but there were catalogues available.

There was a collection of group quilts and although many traditional - this one took my fancy as each block was food - 3d and so clever. Made me hungry again.


Korean style pojaji quilt - I had to buy some fabric to try this technique. I love the transparency effect although it is a long time since I did hand piecing.




I loved these little buttons all over a quilt - so happy

The crowds were quite thick in front of the major winners at times

This is the roof of the Dome - could almost be a quilt itself











While I was at the Show, Peter was wandering aimlessly wherever his curiosity took him. There are a lot of street people in Tokyo and many live in boxes and queue for food . I will post more positive photos of Tokyo next time.


Protection from the frost I expect or just decoration?

1 comment:

Helen said...

Thank you for these great photos of the quilts. I love the red spirally one.