Tokyo Subway Top Complete

The Tokyo Subway quilt top is finally complete! I started to work on this quilt at the inaugural AMQG quilt retreat, shortly before leaving for a month long trip to Japan, where I would be working the majority of the time in Tokyo. I thought it would be a fitting reminder of the time that I spent there. Little did I know, it would be a trip I would never forget! One day before I was scheduled to leave, the fifth largest earthquake in recorded history occurred just 200 miles north of where I was living. Prior to that week I had never been in an earthquake in my life. By the end of the week I had been in four earthquakes (all greater than 6.0, including the 9.0) and several dozen aftershocks. I was extremely lucky to be far enough away from the epicenter that the Tsunami did not impact where I was. The devastating images that came out of the area north of us were unfathomable. My heart goes out to all those whose lives were impacted by the quake and subsequent tsunami and nuclear disaster.

This past weekend we held the 2nd AMQG quilt retreat at the Wimberley Quilt Ranch and I was able to finally finish piecing the top. With the exception of two fabrics (I'll never tell which ones!), I used fabric that was from my stash. My fabric addiction, ok hoarding, finally paid off!

Two things that I did on this quilt I will likely never do again. The first is that I did not chain piece. While I felt it was appropriate for this particular top, because it would have been impossible to keep all the blocks straight had I chain pieced, when you don't chain piece, the start point for every seam is not locked as tightly as when you do. This lead to several spots where I had to redo the seams because they were coming apart. (I'll try and post an example image of this later.)

Second, I pressed the seams open. While the modern art movement has embraced pressing the seams open, I do not like it. First of all, it is cumbersome to do. Secondly, it made matching the seams difficult. Thirdly (is that a word?), when you insert the pins to match the seams, you have to put the pin heads on the outside of the fabric (see image to the left). This makes it difficult to sew over the seams with your quarter inch foot. It also caused me to break many, many needles. Normally, when I pin, I put the pin head on the fabric side, and make sure the tip of the pin is just about 1/4 inch from the edge. This way, when you sew over the pins, you are barely sewing over the tip of the pin, which can move out of the way if need be. When you put the pin heads outside the fabric the pin seems less free to move around. Next time I will stick to pressing seams to one side.

Checkout some more pics here.

Now, onto quilting it....

Finished Supernova Top

My finished supernova quilt top! I'm still working out how I'm going to quilt it, but think it will be something geometric to compliment the straight lines of the design. I'm also leaning towards white or light gray thread and a white backing.

Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art

While I was working in Japan, I took some time off and my husband and I traveled to Kyoto. As is the case on most of our urban vacations, I dragged him to the Kyoto Modern Art Museum (MOMAK, as they call it), only to find out that they were closed.  It was not a day they were normally supposed to be closed, so I was a more than a little irritated, which my husband, no doubt, can confirm!  The Tokyo Modern Art Museum had been a bit of a disappointment - I was interested in understanding the modern art movement in Japan specifically, however, what we saw at the Tokyo museum was mostly european style modern art simply made by Japanese artists.  I wanted to see Japanese modern art and was sure the MOMAK was going to deliver.

Once we realized we were not getting into the MOMAK, I begrudgingly agreed to go across the street to the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art at my husband's suggestion.  Boy, was I glad we went.  It just so happened that some students were setting up their textile arts for their graduation exhibit.  It didn't actually open until the next day, but they let us wander through anyway.  What we saw just blew my mind.  There are only a few spots left in my memory anymore (thank you chemo-brain) and this exhibit definitely made it in.

Kyoto Municipal Museum. Click on the photo to see more images from the exhibit.

By the way, we did finally make it to the MOMAK.  They had a much better collection of Japanese modern art than the Tokyo museum, however, nothing that took the place in my memory of the textile art exhibit.  

Supernova - Layout

I could hardly wait to work on the layout after this weeks instructions were posted. Here are the finished 9 blocks. I didn't deviate too far from the original plan, just a minor tweak in one of the blocks.

Supernova - Weekly Assignment Complete

I ended up changing the layout of the colored blocks. I had started to put them up two by two as I completed the piecing of each color set. But when I had them all up like this, I decided I really liked the look of it, so I think I will leave it this way! Can't wait 'til the next post so I can complete these squares!

Supernova Quilt Layout

I finished cutting all the patterned fabric pieces yesterday. I still have to cut out the background. I will likely stick with a white background, as in the original Supernova quilt, though I am not settled on that yet. I've got all the fabrics separated by block in ziploc bags.

I took images of the strips in each block before the final cutting so that I could get an idea of how I'd like to arrange the colors. Here is a tentative layout, which may change depending on how the contrast works between the edge fabrics in each of the blocks once they are pieced.

I also have an extra block that will go somewhere at some point...

Supernova Quilt Fabric Selection

After consulting with my sister, I decided to use the fabric that I bought in Fabric Town in Japan for the Supernova Quilt-a-long. After sorting through it all, here are the fabric selections and the groupings I decided on:

They look so pretty all nice and rolled up, I'm going to have a hard time unrolling and cutting them!

Call for Quilts for Japan

Patchwork Tsushin, a leading Japanese quilt magazine, is asking for quilts for those impacted by the recent earthquake and tsunami.  If you have a quilt laying around you just don't know what to do with, or if you'd like to whip one up really quick, donate via Quilter's Newsletter Magazine.

Japan - Fabric Town

Before heading to Japan, some friends in AMQG mentioned a place in Tokyo called 'Fabric Town'.  Located just outside the Nippori train station on the Yamanote line are several blocks lined with fabric shops.  They had more kinds of fabric than I ever imagined - quilting fabric, patterned knit, velvet & vinyl, not to mention the countless notions.  It was fabric heaven.

I managed to make two trips there during my month-long stay in Tokyo, which was difficult given that most of the shops in Fabric Town are only open Mon-Sat 10am-6pm and I was working Mon-Sat 9am-9pm.  Luckily, I had a week off from work during my stay in Japan, which included two Saturdays!  I dragged my poor husband there both times, the second time with the lure of lunch at a noodle shop nearby where they made fresh noodles right in front of you.  

The main store for quilt fabric was Tomato, which was 6 stories tall, each story being a different type of fabric.  The quilting fabric was on the 6th floor and has an overwhelming selection of fat quarters.  Not to mention an incredible amount of notions  - purse handles & straps, zippers, templates, etc.  Pure heaven.  I bought a bunch of zippers and some quilting fabric.  Much of the quilting fabric was actually not made in Japan, so I didn't go too crazy here.

Tomato.  From Left: Solid Knits, Pattern Knit, Fat Quarters, Purse Handles

One of the other floors had an amazing selection of knits.  I've recently become obsessed with making knit sleeves to keep me warm in the office, so I was particularly interested in this floor.  I managed to learn the symbols for cotton, polyester, and rayon thanks to google translate on my iPhone.  I didn't end up buying any knit, however, because much of the 100% cotton that I was interested in was $35 per yard...a little too rich for simple office sleeves!  

After leaving Tomato, I scored a ton of Japanese quilting fabric at the store across the street called Tsukiyasu Honten.  The folks working here were SO friendly.  On my second trip I was actually able to complete the entire transaction in Japanese after learning a few more fabric related words!  Tsukiyasu Honten was definitely my favorite shop that I visited and the main reason that I wanted to make the second trip back to Nippori.