while you're ahead…

This week it’s going to be a quilt party around here…  I’ve taken a lot of photographs yesterday and I want to share with you all that caught my eye.  Also, believe me when I say that not a lot is going on behind the scene if you discount school shopping and normal holiday life (nobody wants to walk the dog, nobody wants to do holiday homework, nobody wants to do the washing/ironing…)

So without further ado left me show you another favourite exhibition at the Festival.  Totally different from the style of Nancy Crow, but equally mesmerising.   The show is called Indigo & Sarasa: pieces of my life.  Indigo… well we all know about the wonderful blue fabric dyed with the indigo plant, a tradition which is really strong in Japan;  Sarasa is the name of the block printed fabric, traditionally in lighter, warmer, earthy colours.

Shizuko Kuroha is a famous Japanese quilter, authors of many books, she works mainly with vintage fabric from her tiny studio in a Tokyo suburb.   The story goes that in the 1970s, whilst living in the United States, Shizuko saw an old quilt that gave her such an emotional response and left such a lasting impression that she had to learn how to quilt…  when she moved back to Japan she started to explore the rich quilting tradition of her country and these latest work are simply sublime and hasn’t stopped in 40 years.  She works on normally just about two quilts a year (look at the following photographs and you can see why) but she spends her time teaching and giving lectures too.

 

Remembrance of wind, 1996

so many different fabrics…

such tiny pieces…

Echo 1, 2007 (left) – The sun shines brilliantly 2011 (right)

I love how you think she uses a clam shell pattern, but that it’s only in the quilting… it’s all in the clever use of log cabins blocks.  Genius.

all hand stitched…

This minuscule logcabin miniature quilt was mind-blowing.

Wind and Tree 2010

The peaceful Sea 2010

And a personal favourite, Wish for a beautiful earth 2000

another ingenious log cabin block in a courthouse step pattern…

Aren’t they magnificent?  Her eye for shades and colour variation, her skills in manipulating geometrical shapes almost magically into other make believe ones is just incredible.  Fabric dances in her quilts, don’t you think?