Osaka 2006
Scarlett traveled to Japan on March 15th, to teach two half day classes at Quilt Week Osaka and one all day class at a local quilt shop, the home of Mother M Quilters. Here are some pictures from her trip. There are lots of pictures, so please be patient as these load. Pages 2 & 3 have more pictures.
Quilt Week is held inside the Osaka Dome, a covered sports stadium that seats 48,000. When not hosting conventions, concerts and other special events, it is the home of the Buffaloes, a Japanese baseball team. Attendance at this year's Quilt Week was 40,000.
The main floor featured quilts, organized into special exhibit areas and with a main exhibit area. All quilts were displayed on walls and many of the special exhibits did not allow photography. The vendor area had rows and rows of booths, with lots to see and buy! The food area, located to the far left side and separated from the vendors and the quilts, offered a wide variety of choices, ranging from bento boxes to freshly grilled skewers. The classrooms were located underneath the seating area, in a maze of corridors.
This quilt was the only one in the main quilt exhibit that had knotwork in it, lots of it! The quilt is very heavily quilted, with trapuntoed roses in the corners. This is a full size quilt. This classic knotwork design is thought to be Leonardo Da Vinci's and Scarlett has seen only two other quilts, one done more than a decade ago, that had this intricate knotwork design appliqued on them.
There is a smaller version of this knot in Gail Lawther's book, "More Celtic Quilting," on page 26. It has to be enlarged, since the pattern given fits on a page of a regular size book, but Gail has redrawn the knot by simplifying some of the details and by adding her own center knot and border. This book is available through Scarlett's UK Amazon Associates site.
There were a series of quilts that took a traditional American block pattern and then had the whole design of the quilt built around that. This quilt uses a block called card trick.
Along one wall, there were a lot of small quilts, about 18" square in size. This one showed that Harry Potter is popular in Japan, since the title is "I Love Harry Potter".
Here's another small quilt in the same area as the Harry Potter quilt. This gray color scheme seemed to be very popular.
The red area in the center of this picture was the Celtic quilt exhibit. Scarlett had 15 of her Celtic quilts on display and Philomena Durcan had 5 of her quilts. There was a small area set aside in the back left corner for a TV, VCR and some chairs, with the World of Celtic Quilts video running at set times throughout the show.
Left to right: Roberta Merkle, Jean Keyes (Interpreter), Michiko Shima, Scarlett Rose, Heather Rose, Michiyo Okomoto.
Quilts behind the group: New Directions, New Beginnings and Out of Darkness: Hope by Scarlett Rose
Scarlett brought along her own interpreter, Jean, to help her with communications. Roberta, a quilter from the Sunday Sew group of which Scarlett is a member, made her first international trip ever. Heather, Scarlett's niece, helped out as teacher's assistant. Michiko Shima and Michiyo Okomoto were the gracious hosts during Scarlett's visit. Everyone had a fabulous time!