Yokohama Quilt Festival - Part 1

About an hour away from our flat is Yokohama, home to the largest Chinatown outside China, or so I am told. I have blogged about that before, but on this visit I was there for the 2014 Yokohama Quilt Show. 329 photos later...

It was a biggy, and the whole arena was dominated by these four huge quilts suspended from the high ceiling.

Quilts which, bizarrely, I don't seem to have a photo of from the front. Trust me - they were big and impressive. As you came in you were head on with a Kaffe Fassett exhibition with the rest of the exhibits to left and right and then the shopping area at the back behind all that - the same arrangement as at the NEC quilt show in the UK each year. As I walked in I heard a man's voice speaking english and who should it be but Kaffe himself giving an opening address.

I looked at his quilts but was straight away struck by two things.
1. No one else can afford to use this much Kaffe Fassett fabric.
2. These quilts are pretty insipid.
Compared to what modern quilt designers are doing, his designs are purely a vehicle to sell his fabric, which works best in large plain pieces. But hey, that's his thing so good luck to him. There are some pictures at the beginning of my Flickr set if you want to see them.

The exhibition was in sections, with many showing "no photography" signs which was a real shame. However, as you can judge from all the photos I took, there were plenty without this label! To start - a selection of garments and bags. Sadly these were all labelled in Japanese so I can't attribute them properly.

Then Pictorial Quilts. I loved this first one because of endlessly reading the book "Moo Baa La La La" to my niece. The phrase "No No, you say, that isn't right!" is forever suck in my mind. I have been able to attribute these so click on them for more info.

And then next to that one - jaw drop.

Why this quilt is called "Duck Face" I can't think! Lost in translation I guess. The detail was amazing.

Cheeky little British one there, by a Japanese quilter. Then I moved on to one of my favourite sections - "Japanese Quilts". I am not sure how the sections were defined but these are all what I would consider to be in a japanese style. There are close up shots of details of most of the quilts here in the Flickr set.

We then get into "Traditional Quilts".

This one must have taken some hefty planning and organisation.

And from traditional to modern....

This one was rather interesting - using translucent panels between the complexly patched ones. 

And then part of the sky.

No wonder I ended up taking so many photos - the standard of work at this show was through the roof. Even the funny ones were expertly made. Example - Panda Invaders!

Another section was for pictorial quilts inspired by the words "My Beautiful Village".

This next one was by high school students - there were a few done by presumably the equivalent of an A-Level textiles group. Love the sleeping cat!

All this takes me to about half way through my photos. I'll save the rest for another post! Although if you can't wait you can see everything (including all the ones I haven't included in the sections described above) in my Flickr set.