Yokohama Quilt show

Left Kyoto after 2 days and had to make the decision to stay or leave early as on this day the 15 th November was a flea market, which is on once a month, or to travel to Yokohama for the quilt show. On awaking Friday morning, it was raining, decision made, no flea market for me. We caught the 0930hrs train to Shin Yokohama, arrived at 12md and walked to the hotel, only a 10 min walk as you could see the hotel from the train station. Check in was at 2 pm, so we decided to go to the quilt show. Asked how to get there...thought we were close, (as I asked the travel agent to place us in a hotel near the quilt show), was told.. a 45 min ride by cab, best way to get there was by train, 2 trains and 6 stops later, the train and stopped at Queens Square. Then we had to find the exhibition building in the rain, 15 mins later, we arrived at 1.30 pm. The show was so crowded, this was no hardship as the Japanese are very polite and welcoming. I managed to get some photo's, but the ones that were absolute works of art were not allowed to be photographed. There were over 200 quilts on display and the grand prize money was 1.3000.000 yen ($130,000), for the life of me I could not find the winner. There were  two mini quilts which had a gold and silver ribbon on  them, but could not find the grand prize winner. There were quilts on display from Japanese artists, which were three dimensional and works of art in themselves, awe inspiring, like collages. English is very limited and difficult to get your meaning across, but hand gestures work well and with the help of calculators, money was not an issue. I managed to spend about $200, lots of bargains with fabric and accessories. Would have loved to buy the kits for the bags etc, but all the instructions were in Japanese. I could not resist buying a kit from Rieko Kato's shop. The kit and pattern was  for bag for my pens and sewing tools. The pattern is in muted country colours and has little houses on the front. I felt that I could follow the picture, to make the bag. Not expensive for the kit, only $18.90.

All in all we spent 6 hours at the show, as it did not close until 6pm, DH was well and truly over it but as a true dedicated partner he stuck it out, with just a few comments, kept some of the Japanese women amused. also ran into some aussie's, who we had a great chat with. 

Today Saturday I felt that I could not face the train trip or the crowds, so opted to have a quite day, we caught the train into the bay Alexandra area of Yokohama and visited another Yuzawaya store! stocked up on more goods? it costs 500 yen ($5) to join, but with the savings and discounts I saved that and more.

DH, in the entrance to the quilt show, the two quilts displayed are enormous, great works of art.

Some of the workshops being run.

Rieko Kato's stall, lots of great patterns and quilts for sale, all in Japanese.

Some of the quilts displayed and allowed to be photographed

Crazy patchwork.

Just loved this simplistic Japanese quilt.

A close up of the quilting.

This miniature had a gold ribbon, three dimensional poppies.

This white cloth miniature had a silver ribbon.

DH liked these two the best.

This was my favourite, some close up with the use of toile.

Japanese quilt, all the black lettering was appliqued

Baltimores even got a look in.

A miniature quilt challenge of 100 small baskets.

Some close up's of the baskets.

Bags on display

Covered buttons to make a Christmas tree.

Hand embroided red work miniature.

The one below is for Chris Jurd, look familiar!

I hope that you have enjoyed the eye candy, whilst sitting doing this blog we had an earthquake, everyone ran for the doors, the building we are in has two circular towers and there are warnings that the building will sway in strong winds and what to do in an earthquake. I felt the earth tremor under my seat, as we are in the lobby, blogging, whilst everyone ran outside to see what had happened. DH also made the comment he does't know what's worse, watching me blog or shop!.