Tokyo's Autumn Quilt Market, smaller version of Festival
Last weekend, I found myself unexpectedly back at the Tokyo Dome.
The organizers of the giant Tokyo Great International Quilt Festival have started hosting a smaller, three-day event known as the Autumn Quilt Festival.
I'd heard about this event before I left the U.S., but wasn't planning to attend because I thought it was more of a marketing event for B2B. Not so! I was given some tickets and decided to change up my schedule to make a brief stop. Glad I did!
The Autumn Market is mostly shopping. Its not big enough to be held on the baseball dome floor like the January event. Its held at a convention hall that is connected to the Tokyo Dome.
The festival has several aisles of vendors and one small display of quilts near the entrance. There is no juried competition and there weren't any museum-quality exhibitions. Rather, the finished quilts on display were all geared toward the Christmas holiday and general home decorating.
The vendors were selling lots of traditional fabric, along with clothing, buttons, jewelry, patterns... all the usual.
Check this out - these are natrual acorn tops (real ones!) with stuffed, silk kimono pieces sewn on to make these colorful, decorative stalks. Love these!
There's even a husband waiting area! The one in the back is my patient husband! He's come half-way 'round the world to sit while I shop for fabric. He's the best!
If you're in Tokyo next September, you might want to stop by and check out the Autumn Quilt Market.
Its always fun to shop for quilt stuff, but the only problem for me is the weight limit of my suitcase. I miss the days when we could just check a bunch of bags on the plane and not worry about how much they weighed... and there were no fees. Now, it costs a fortune. Oh well. These are good problems to have I guess.
I really enjoyed your story about meeting Yoko Saito and bringing the small quilt for her to see. Your comparison of Japanese society to a corporation in its hierarchical structure, but also of the unexpected pleasures that can come when the system is bypassed, was very interesting and rang true.
ReplyDeleteI was at the Portland, OR quilt show with my niece, a newer quilter, and we saw a taupe quilt sampler which reminded me of Ms. Saito's work. I was delighted to come home and forward your blog post to my niece, to give her an idea of whom I'd been telling her about--you painted a lovely picture of someone who might otherwise simply be a very well known name to many of us.
I follow you via email: wordygirl at earthlink dot net
ReplyDeleteI'd love to travel to the Tokyo market some day. Thanks for sharing all the photos. I'm new to your blog, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. thanks for the great giveaway. I'd love to win fabric for a great quilt.
ReplyDeleteI went to this place in first time with my husband on Tuesday night after work. The inside of venues in Chicago was quit big and had enough seats to sit and nice bar area. We had a few things, along with drinks and it was all good!
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