Tokyo 2018

I had been meaning to blog about my Tokyo trip straight after the Kyoto post, but I have been too busy since we returned from visiting our new home in Canberra at Easter. So here it is at long last: Tokyo post! 

We travelled from Kyoto to Tokyo on the Shinkansen bullet train. The train ride was enjoyable. Our son and his family were with us. We were well prepared for our train trip. The grand-kids got books and toys to keep themselves occupied. I had a bag of sewing and some snacks for all of us.

In Tokyo, I planned to visit The Tokyo International Quilt Festival. It is held in the last week of January each year. I also wanted to take DDIL to Amuse Museum to see the BORO exhibition that I had visited 5 years earlier. Our son wanted to take the children to Tokyo Disney, but he was keeping it quiet until the end to surprise them. 

An extra bonus for me was to visit the Saori studio and spent a lovely day weaving using the Saori loom. You can't go to Tokyo without visiting Nippori Fabric Town. I also wanted to babysit the grand-kids so our son and DDIL could go out and see Tokyo's nightlife. 

We were expecting an early snow in Tokyo and we weren't disappointed. The day after we arrived we all went to Yoyogi Park to let the children and adults play in the thick snow. We had a super fun time.

BORO bag DGD made with vintage fabric we
bought at the Kyoto's flea market. 

Uniqlo Ginza, window display
goes up as tall as the eyes can see!

Park benches in the snow

We made snowmen

A peek at cherry blossoms in Tokyo

Tokyo manhole cover, my favourite so far

Tokyo Quilt International Festival day out. I took DDIL and DGD with me to the festival with me. I bought our tickets online. When we got out of the train station at Tokyo Dome and saw a long queue of people waiting to get into the festival I thought, OMG! We would never get in there today! To our surprise, the queue moved so fast and we were able to enter in less than 15 minutes. While we were standing in the queue DGD attracted a lot of attention from the Japanese quilters (they must be quilters!) with the boro bag she carried with her. She proudly told them she made it herself. "Kawaii", they were all saying to her. 

Korakuen Amusement Park at Tokyo Dome

View Tokyo Dome at you enter

Colourful Circles quilt and the maker

One of many beautiful quilts at the show

The happy lady at one of the stands

Both jacket and bag inspired me to
make them when I get home

The show's cover quilt

Blue and white quilts are my all-time favourites

Framed boro quilt

Special moment witnessing a reveal
her woven piece. 

Another special visit was to the Amuse Museum (boro museum). I was there on my last visit to Tokyo. I really wanted to take DIL to see these boro cloths and articles. I was glad that I got a chance to see them the second time around. The exhibition was a real treasure to share for both the Japanese and visitors.

Indigo items for sale in the museum shop

Boro quilt with red colour inspiration

Boro jacket

This boro piece was well preserved and displayed.

You can appreciate a hall full of boro treasures

The back view of a boro cloth

Some well-loved toeshoes

I love going back to Japan, any part of Japan really. I thought this would be the last trip I would make to Japan, but after I returned I thought I will have to go back again. Japan has everything that I love and it's close enough to Australia to get to. Let's see when is my next trip there. 

After we left Tokyo we spent another 5 days in Hiroshima. Hiroshima was on Mr Notjustnat's list of places to visit so we included it in our trip this time.

Until next time
Nat

Kyoto - 2018

We visited Kyoto 7 years ago. It was actually our first trip to Japan trip. This time the trip was more tailored to specific things I wanted to do and see. We stayed in this beautiful hotel Misui Garden. The room was almost big enough for the two of us! But in saying that, the hotel was beautiful and the Japanese style breakfast was plentiful and delicious. 

Apart from planning to hit the Toji Temple flea market on the 22nd of each month we also went back to the places we visited 7 years earlier. The flea market was a success. I was glad I decided to go there. There were so many cool stores and lots and lots of boro/indigo vintage fabrics to die for! The market was so big and busy that I feel I need to go back for another visit to see the rest of it. 

Our son and his family joined us on this trip so we got to spend time with them as well. I suggested that we should visit Nara while we were there. So we did. I knew the grand kids would enjoy the deer park in Nara. 

After Kyoto, we went to Tokyo in time for the Tokyo International Quilt Festival. I will blog about that on the next post. 

Japanese Garden

View from the hotel lobby into the garden

Kyoto Manhole cover

Kimono ladies in Kyoto

Fushima Inari Shrine

Nanzen-ji Garden, Kyoto

Warning sign at Nara deer park

Deer feeding

Toji Temple flea-market store

Toji Temple flea-market, more store

BORO/Indigo/ Vintage fabric
at the flea-market

Ikebana arrangement
at Kyoky Station

I got a lot more of photos, but I don't want to overwhelm you in one post. The next post I will blog about Tokyo and the Tokyo International Quilt Festival.

Until next time
Nat

March 2017!

2017 comes with wings! I can't believe how fast it flew by this year. After I got over Christmas and New Year holidays I went back in my treehouse studio to pick-up and work on some of my UFOs. I got the Yellow Crumb quilt top finished which was a relief. At the same time I was hand stitching the Indigo moons block for the Quilty 365 challenge which I started in 2016. I didn't get to 365 blocks, but with a clever setting, I might get enough to make a queen size quilt. 

We have had a sad event in our family. My beloved Mother-in-law passed away in late Feb. My family and I made a short trip to the funeral in Auckland, NZ. My MIL was a lovely and supporting lady for all of us. I know we will all miss her. 

My colleagues and friends at work gave me a lovely bouquet of flowers on my return, so I decided to use them in the dye bundles in memory of my MIL. I also did more dyeing using my usual eucalyptus leaves. There lot of photos here so please enjoy...

Desert Cactus flower from my garden

Sympathy flowers into bundle 

Eucalyptus leave dyed. 

More Eucalyptus dyed

First piece from the bouquet 

Second piece of the bouquet

I read somewhere in social media about the Asia Gallery Warehouse in Auckland. On my last day there I thought I would look it up and what I found was WOW! It was an amazing hidden gem of a warehouse. I got talking to one of the ladies there and found that her husband worked most of his life in Japan. Although retired, he keeps going back there and brings all the gorgeous textiles and vintage artefacts back to Auckland. It happened that he married a lovely Thai lady so he is now importing vintage textiles from northern Thailand as well. I spent a few good hours there enjoying all the displays. I imagined I was back in Japan and Thailand! Naturally, I bought some gorgeous fabric from there! 

BORO indigo Yukatas

Silk for dyeing and indigo fabric

The stash I brought home

The two lovely ladies I met there.

The Japanese wooden doll (Kokeshi doll)
to add to my collection.

Some quilts I'm working on recently: The Indigo Moon is the Quilty 365 block challenge in 2016. It started off very well. I kept it going for most of 2016.

I completed the Yellow Crumb quilt I started with my friend Myra when she visited in October. I got really motivated and got it done over the Christmas holidays. I have just sent it off to the machine quilter and I can't wait to get it back! Out of the blue I started another quilt in January. It's a quilt from the Cultural Fusion Quilts book by Sujata. My favourite thing about starting all these quilts is, I have all the fabric I need for all of them! I'm a true quilter in the sense that I thrive on reusing and re-purposing what I have. I even go as far as getting new clothes with fabric that can be use for quilting in the future!  

Setting I've chosen for Indigo Moon Quilt

Original setting, but it will need more blocks!

Yellow Crumb Quilt

Some blocks from the Cultural Fusion Quilts book

Lucky Find: I haven't posted lucky find for awhile because everything I find these days is a lucky find! But today I'd like to share with you my lucky, lucky find. A vintage Ralph Lauren, RL Polo bag. I found it at a cool vintage store in Bangkok. It's a perfect little bag to carry a wallet and a phone around. I love love using it!

Hope everyone in North America is coping well with the cold weather you have been getting lately. You are supposed to be getting into Spring aren't you? Please keep safe and warm. 

I don't have any overseas travel planned this year, but I'm planning a big trip to the Tokyo International Quilt Festival in Jan. 2018 so I am saving everything for that. You can't just go to Japan without seeing more of the country so we will fit in Kyoto and maybe the south which we have not ventured into. For 2017 we will make mini trips to the outback or a trip to Sydney later on in the year.

My lovely friend Janet Wright is complaining that I don't update my blog enough! Sorry Janet, but I really haven't done much to blog about! I can assure you that I have been physically active exercising most days. 

Until next time

Nat