Kyoto Quilt Festival – March 2025 – Part 1
This is the first of a 3- part blog post about my trip to Kyoto.
Last fall I started getting mysterious messages on Facebook from someone in Japan who I had never met. Eventually these messages were inviting me to show my artwork at the Kyoto Quilt Festival, which I had never attended. Fortunately, due to my many years of attending the Tokyo Quilt Festival, I was able to find a mutual friend to communicate with the show organizer Reiko to translate the messages. I didn’t want to presume….but I must admit I was delighted when I could eventually accept the official invitation…..and received the event flier listing me as the American Invited Guest Artist.
I figure I have been to Japan about 20 times over several decades. In the early 80s when I lived in Hong Kong, I traveled to Osaka as a fashion designer, for textile sourcing. My first trip to the Tokyo Quilt Festival was in 2008, and I returned there every year…..up through the last one, which was in January 2020. The pandemic finally killed that huge show. It is hard to comprehend how many people came to that show: 250K people came to that show over one week, and most days over 35K visited on a single day. Five to ten thousand people would line up in the morning, to get into the show. I stayed at the Tokyo Dome Hotel and could look out my hotel window and see them lining up…a mass of quilter humanity.
So I booked my flights this time for Osaka, and was told to take a bus or train to Kyoto. Because I was carrying a heavy 2nd bag with all my quilts, I opted to pay more and take a shuttle which was shared with a couple other people. They took me to the front door of my Kyoto hotel which was a huge relief.
I came a day early so I had a whole day to rest, before setup day. I chose a hotel that was within walking distance of the event, and was near the subway.
However on my rest day, Reiko and her group of volunteers came to pick me up and take me out to lunch. I am vegetarian, and they had very kindly found a Buddhist vegan restaurant which was excellent! One of the best vegetarian meals I have ever had….a bento box with 12 different artistic delightful tastings of vegan Japanese cuisine. We had a wonderful lunch getting to know each other and making plans for the next day.
Set up day! We all arrived in the morning, and walked into a completely empty hall. Workers brought in walls and set them up based on a carefully planned layout. My 60 feet of gallery space was in the middle of the room, as the show layout began to take shape.
Because the organizer had been out of commission with a health issue the week before, some of the hanging details had not been totally worked out. Fortunately I got some help from one of the Korean quilters who noticed I was having a quiet meltdown trying to get my quilts hung. The last 2-3 quilts weren’t hung until an hour after the show opened the next day, but you know, sometimes you just have to keep breathing and trust it will all work out.
You can see photos of the Kyoto Quilt Festival here.
The opening day was very special. Somebody came to get me, and lead me to the lobby entrance. All the artists and volunteers were gathered there. They gave me a pair of white gloves. I had no idea what was going to happen. Then they had me stand next to Reiko the show “Queen Bee” as we called her, and they strung a long ribbon across the line of women. They passed out scissors. Oh! I finally got it. We were all going to simultaneously cut the ribbon to symbolically open the event. It was the Opening Ceremony. I was honored to participate.
The show was in its 10th year. It was made up of several groups of quilters, from 3 countries: Japan, Korea and Taiwan. The ladies from Korea and Taiwan seemed to mostly be able to communicate in Japanese. Some of the artists spoke a little English too. So there were 4 languages being spoken and sometimes communication had to go through 2 layers of translation. There was quite a bit of sign language, and we laughed a lot. Because you know, quilting is a universal language and we were instantly all part of the sisterhood. Several of the ladies took it upon themselves to help me and take care of me, which was very much appreciated!
On the 2nd day of the show, I gave my power point lecture “International Quilt Trends” to a seated audience of about 100 people, and my 200 quilt photos projected onto a screen. I talked about all the exciting quilt trends and techniques that I have seen around the world over the last year. One thing I have learned when giving this talk in another country – if it has to be translated it will take twice as long! So I had to cut the slide show in half, otherwise the talk would be 2 hours instead of 1 hour.
After my lecture, I also gave a freemotion sewing lesson on a Bernina sewing machine. The ladies were very interested in learning about this technique, after seeing my artwork. What fun to share my passion for machine stitching and Bernina machines, with this avid group!
As you may know, Japanese quilters are renowned for their intricate beautiful handwork. The Japanese quilters always win the hand-quilted category in Houston, for instance. But the last few years of the Tokyo Quilt Festival, there was a growing interest and exploration of machine quilting. For so many years I wondered why the sewing machine companies came to the Tokyo quiltfest, but eventually they began to break through, and Japanese quilters began to buy machines and experiment with these techniques. I was asked to come back and teach at another event, and who knows, perhaps that will happen.
On the 3rd day, I gave 2 gallery talks. I spent about 45 minutes walking through my 12 art quilts, sharing the story of each quilt, and explaining the techniques and materials I used to make them. Of course I had a translator for these gallery talks as well. On this day I also had several eQuilter customers come to visit. These were Americans living in Japan and working there. One woman was an art teacher at a local private school. Another taught English in another school. Having lived in Asia decades ago, it was interesting to hear about their experience living and working in Japan.
As a longtime Bernina ambassador in the US, I know that I can often connect with other Bernina artists when traveling abroad. In this case, the head of Bernina Japan came to the show and we had lunch together, to discuss the state of machine sewing in Japan today. I sew on a B790 and Q20, the latter being a sit-down midarm. The average Japanese quilter does not have room in their small houses or apartments to keep a longarm or even a midarm. Having a longarm in our homes here in the US is quite a luxury, compared to other countries. But if you have ever seen those hand-stitched Japanese quilts, they are also quite large. I imagine these ladies making these large quilts on their tiny kitchen tables. They overcome these limitations to create exquisitely detailed, gorgeous large works of textile art….that leave us breathless.
The funniest part of this whole trip was when the organizer invited all the artists and volunteers to a buffet dinner at a fancy Western hotel. We were about 60 ladies in a large private room. Our Japanese counterparts love to give each other gifts. There was a door prize drawing and everybody got a little gift. At the end one of the Korean artists offered an antique silver serving spoon from Korea, for a group raffle….but she stipulated that we had to fight for it by playing the Asian version of Rock Paper Scissors. Well you can imagine. 60 ladies, 4 languages and much translating, several rounds of Rock Paper Scissors, and much shrieking and giggling….eventually we had our winner. Absolutely hilarious. Some of us had tears streaming down our cheeks from laughing so hard, and we were gasping for breath. Good times.
Speaking of tears, yes there were some when we said good-bye at the end of the show. I had some very special thank-yous for my lecture, and a couple of the younger ladies said that my message about empowerment of women was very meaningful for them. Well that made the whole trip worthwhile.
The future of this show is a question mark. The longtime organizer Reiko is likely unable to continue, so we will have to wait and see if a younger cohort can step up. These ladies take turns exhibiting in each others’ countries, which means they will meet up again in Korea and Taiwan this year. I am told that the Yokohama show in November is now the largest quilt festival in Japan, but it is nowhere near the size of the Tokyo Quilt Festival. If you were able to experience that show before it closed, count yourself lucky.
I did have some time to walk around Kyoto during my time there. This was my 4th time in Kyoto so I had seen all the main tourist sights at least once or twice in the past. However I did take some photos in the Kyoto Craft Museum (in the same building as the quilt festival) and some other street photography. My last day there was a free day, and happened to also be Girls Day. My friend Naomi took me on a special holiday tour for this special day. We went the local temple – The Temple of 1000 Golden Buddhas – for special Girls Day events. That evening we had a beautiful meal at a traditional teahouse, with a historic collection of antique dolls displayed for the holiday.
You can see those photos here, plus a few photos from my final day in Osaka with my friend Keiko. She and her husband very graciously gave me a lovely tour day in Osaka, including the Osaka Castle museum. Keiko is the self-proclaimed Queen of Trash because she recycles/upcycles all kinds of found objects and textiles into quilts and bags and usable trinkets.
Many thanks to everyone who take such good care of me on this trip to beautiful Japan!
I will share two more blog posts about this trip in the near future. There are more stories and photos to share!
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