tokyo quilt festival : part three

Besides a plethora of booths selling fabrics and quilted handbags, the Quilt Festival developed some outstanding presentations.

Getting to see the actual process steps of indigo dyeing was wonderful. I’ve just bought Jenny Balfour-Paul’s book, Indigo, which will be helpful to extend my understanding—as all the explanations at the show were in Japanese.

Ten diverse quilters each decorated a space with their quilts, furniture and props in a section called “Welcome To My Room.” These were definitely the most compelling exhibits, especially when the artists were present.

Allentown Art Museum from Pennsylvania hung a traditional selection of historic quilts. And Hae-Ja, Kim, a leading nubi artisan from South Korea, stitched on site with a special showing of her sublime quilted clothes.

baby ob’bayi’s quilt

Indigo Baby, 2008, 42" square
GIFTED TO CHLOE OB’BAYI

In Africa, clothes dyed with indigo are a symbol of wealth. In Japan, indigo is the color of summer and is used to dye cotton cloth for lightweight kimonos known as yukatas.

In making a baby quilt for Heidi Ob’bayi, I chose a selection of indigo fabrics from around the world. The Japanese fabric honors the two years Heidi spent in Japan with the JET Program while the elephant fabric represents Kevin’s Kenyan heritage.

Today I gave Heidi her quilt at a lovely baby shower. Almost 50 guests attended the catered event at the PEMCO Home Office where the pile of presents was remarkable!

The quilt is hand-stitched vertically “in the ditch” with a little extra stitching around the elephants. The indigo blue and white fabrics are framed with a mustard and navy batik used for the binding.