Fruition

I have actually done some pieces with some of the fabric I brought back from Japan. Bigger pieces than chiri-men boards, anyway. I thought I had better post them for posterity before I give them away. That's why I never have anything to show for all the work I do in my studio: it goes out the door before I take photographs! I will note that now I see these in picture form, I don't care for some of them. I will explain...
This is "Ishi Guruma" or stone wheel. The pattern was created for quilters by Sheila DeRose. If you are crazy about Japanese inspired quilting, these are great to have. Difficult as well - challenging and fun! Anyway, this was a practice piece. The quilt block itself is 100% antique Japanese silk fabric, recycled. The border and binding are new cotton fabric.
I scaled the size waayyy down, just did one block, and did an extremely simple border. Now I know how I want to choose my fabrics for the next one. And I will, young Skywalker, I will...
This is based on the Seven Treasures motif, and is one block in the quilt designed by Sheila DeRose. The only new fabric in this one is the black surrounding the quilt block itself. The rest is recycled Japanese silks. The solids are kind of a brocade. I did a very amateurish job trying to mimic the brocade pattern (kind of a greek key thing) in the black in machine quilting. I'm still learning. Be gentle with me!

This is a take off on the thistle quilt block pattern. I call it "water lily". The only new fabric in this block is the blue background. I did the "waves" and the "clouds" quilting before I got the book on motifs, or I would have been more true to Japanese motifs on it. Oh, well.

I got on a grandma's fan kick one day and made a whole bunch of just the fan portions. I started playing around with those, and thought it was kind of like a Rising Sun to put two together. Couldn't really come up with something that I like for a background, so I made a purse out of two of them. Looks like an orange rather than Rising Sun. This may have to go back to the drawing board...
Anyway, the orange and the peacock feathers are chirimen, and from the same piece of fabric. The green wheel fabric is a very fine silk - almost lighter than handkerchief linen.

Then, I got on a strip quilt kick, which I am still presently on. This is 100% recycled Japanese fabrics. I will probably devise a clever border for this and quilt it as it is. Strip quilting is really great for "odd" quilting fabrics like silk because if you are a little off line-wise, just put another piece on there to compensate! Love it.

One day, all these "kicks" I get on will pan out into something stupendous. At nearing the big 5-0, I would hope that would pan out soon.

Although, there's always Grandma Moses.