Tokyo Quilt Show--Mother's Day Butterfly quilt

Today, I celebrate mother's day remembering my mom's love of butterflies. She passed away in 1998, but whenever my sister, niece and I are together, butterflies seem to appear. This quilt is from the 2007 Tokyo Quilt show, titled "Fairy of Spring" by Keiko Takahaski. I loved the colors and the quilting. The border is very unique...Look carefully at the very wide metallic shimmering border.

Tokyo Quilts

This quilt "About a Hollyhock". by Masako Tsuada is 196x224 cm, is another of the prize winners at Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival in Jan. 2007. Today it is 80 here and soon the hollyhocks will bloom in Oregon! Don't you just love these huge flowers! Click on the image to see some of the incredible details of the quilting, which includes many bugs, butterflies and birds!

Tokyo Prize Winning Quilt

This quilt entitled "SHE" by Tomoko Matsuura was one of my favorites and a prize winner. The incredible detail of the Lilly of the Valley flowers was overwhelming.. The dragon fly is on the back of the quilt. Click on the photos to enlarge them.

It's been a busy week or so, not much time sewing. The tulips are still on the design wall...the red batik is perfect! Spent last Saturday, at an all day Scrapbooking workshop. I managed to complete 14 pages of my Okinawa trip last August. Then I worked on border designs last night and again this morning.

I've realized that scrapbooking is similar to quilting...cutting shapes, rearranging them and putting it all back together. Once again, I love the color choices and design aspects.

I've been learning to use the Memory Manager software by Creative Memories to edit pictures for this blog. Check out Joanna's website for more details on this great tool! www.mycmsite.com/joannahaugen

Oregon Quilt Shop Safari Final Stops

The red tulips are up on the design wall. I'm still struggling with border triangles. I don't like the solid black triangles...trying the green and the red tulips in the upper corners.

On Sunday, we continued on the Safari with one stop in Dallas, Oregon at Grandma's. This is a great shop with lots of 30's, batiks, orientals, bright childrens prints and just about everything else you can imagine.

On Tuesday it was a quick stop at Quiltwork Patches in Corvallis. Found a great red batik to try in the boarder triangles. Can't wait to see how it works in the daylight!

The last stop on the Safari will be on Thursday at Jani Lou's in Philomath on the way to Mary's River Guild meeting. Looking forward to seeing you there!

Oregon Quilt Shop Safari

Quilters ADHD---starting a new project before finishing the one I started last week. I think I am bored with the yellow and blue project...too many little triangles that all need to meet...I get bored easily when I am not making up the design as I go...so much for following patterns! The first five rows of the blue and yellow quilt are all together, only four more to go then the borders go on...but now I am working on the red tulips!!

On Saturday, I continued on the Quilters Safari, this time stopping at four shops in Junction City, Eugene and Springfield. Our first stop of the day was the best! Thimbles and Threads in Junction City, has it all...great fabric variety, friendly & helpful staff, easy to find and lots of great ideas. I came home with more Asian fabrics...someday the birds (see below) will be finished!

Next we went on to Eugene, to the Quilt Patch. Another great shop with way too many choices. Wonderful selection of Oriental prints, batiks, traditionals and everything in between. A special thanks to the folks that offered for us to follow them to the next shop, rather than try to get directions. We are so thankful, as we would have been quickly lost!!

In Springfield, we first went to Quilters Junction. It was there that inspiration struck...I've had a piece of fabric from Victoria, B.C. last summer, just waiting to be used...It had a dark background with bright red tulips...called Ruby Tulips, by Michael Miller. There was a similar type fabric used in a 9-patch Pizazz pattern. See the blocks in the photo in the top of this posting.

Last stop--Something to Crow About, also in Springfield. Lots of Americana, country and period fabrics. Even my friend Karen caved in and had to some of the wonderful star fabrics.

We are so blessed in Oregon to have so many wonderful Quilt shops!

Oregon quilt shops

Loved this clip that came in one of those chain mails. It's been an interesting week in Oregon...more sunshine...rain and hail. Quilt Safari started yesterday & stopped at three shops in southern Oregon on my way home from a meeting in Medford. Here's the link to the website: http://www.quilterssafari.com/

Now about the first three shops: J & J in Canyonville has wonderful, friendly staff and great selection of fabrics...so what did I buy? Really cool red and blue tea towels with stars! Next it was on to Roseburg & Material Possessions. Cute small store with just the perfect cream/white star on cream background. Once again, very friendly and helpful staff. Ice cold water was just what I needed to get back on the road!

Third store, also in Roseburg, the largest of the three, Country Lady. Found four different oriental fabrics and a gorgeous red paisley for the Christmas collection. Loved the fabric and the store but was disappointed with the fact that they would only tear my fabric! Apparently, "the boss makes us do it". Got home and washed the red paisley only to find that I lost several inches to raveling edges, and distortion of the design after it was washed. Rarely do I get cranky about things like this...but who is the customer...the boss or the person buying the fabric? Next time, I won't be shopping there! I'll be heading out later today to continue on the safari!

Tokyo Quilt Show

I'm sure spring has arrived here in Oregon, as yesterday we had sun, rain and hail all in 15 minutes. It was even raining with the sun out. The flowers are incredible this time of year. I'm still working on the yellow and blue quilt from my last post. Seems to be taking a bit longer than I expected due to all the half triangle blocks that join together. Of course I'm in one of my more perfectionist moods, trying to make it to too perfect, not cutting off any of the triangle points.

In January, I went to the Tokyo Great International Quilt Show. My reason for starting this blog was to share some of the 750 photos that I took. I'm just beginning to sort and organize them for a presentation in June at Mary's River Guild.

So, here are some spring time flower quilts that I adore. In the program books the names of the quilters are in Japanese, as are most of the titles. The first one has incredible beading details. I loved the colors of this second one, that I call Hydrangea.

The third quilt is many small blocks connected with buttons and loops. The cream color is actually the wall and not a part of the quilt. You can see the loops without buttons on the far left side of the quilt. This one had an English title "Garden of Witches". I never found a witch block...sometimes I wonder about the translations.