Stephanie Deaves: Tokyo; 'Moomin' quilts, washi tape, raw chicken and more...

I recently got back from a few days in Tokyo... which was brilliant fun!

We saw a few sights, ate some strange things (see below!) and (fabric) shopped till we dropped!

Raw chicken!!!

Bento box!

Every town should have a ninja restaurant!

I need this!

The main reason for going was to visit the Tokyo Quilt Show and it didn't disappoint. The theme for this years show seemed to be the Swedish cartoon 'Moomin', although it was difficult to tell as all the signs were in Japanese! The 'Moomin' quilts were super cool and the level of detail quite amazing...

The Tokyo quilt show 2014

Here's a photo of my favorite 'quilt'...

Wow!

This piece really challenges the traditional take on quilting. It is made up of tiny hand-pieced balls made out of Japanese silks, hand-sewn to a backing of pain silk. Each ball was about one inch wide and there were hundreds, if not, thousands of them! It created a beautiful three dimensional texture on the wall that changed as you walked around it.

Another favourite area of mine was the indigo quilts...

All the quilts in this area were made of hand-dyed indigo fabrics. The color of the dye was so rich and full that the quilts seemed to glow. Each dye is slightly different and most of the quilts here were pieced with tiny pieces of fabric with slightly different dye colors. This gave the quilts a natural depth and flow.

Here's a few more of my favorites...

As you can see, the standard was truly amazing and there were some beautifully designed and made quilts. Almost all of the quilts were made by hand, partly due to the fact that Japanese apartments are too small, even for a sewing machine.

When we weren't at the Quilt show, we were probably out fabric shopping! Nippori, the fabric district was one of the best places I've ever been for fabric. You could get anything and everything, from ombré leather skins and Japanese silk to metallic linen and quilting cotton.