Quilt for Japan

Happy New Year!

2015 is the year my husband and I join my fiber artist mom on a Quilters Express tour of Japan, including the Tokyo Great International Quilt Festival! We leave in just 3 weeks!

This quilt will be a gift to our pre-tour hosts, a couple who live in Niigata on a 6-generation family farm, devoted to organic production practices. Back in the early 90s, the current owner / operator--then a student at Iowa State University--experimented with projects on my husband's C.S.A. Our four acres have since gone to strictly "hobby farm" status, but the dream of a life on the land remains...

The indigo / brown palette seemed fitting for Japan, and it is always one of my favorites, a kind of "home base" color scheme for me. The quilt even contains some Japanese fabric. See the carp noses above? They are scraps from a shirt I stitched for my husband.

Any precision in the piecing I owe to my Accuquilt Go! Baby cutting machine, which Zenia, over at A Quilted Passion, encouraged me to buy when we visited the AQS quilt show in Des Moines this October. This arrangement of diamond lozenges is called "Arkansas Traveler." (We'll have to adapt that to "Niigata Traveler").

I love how the "X" pattern competes gently with the "O" pattern. I thought I would see X's, but mostly I see "boules". And of course, there are the stars. I will revisit this pattern soon!

In the meantime, stay tuned for pictures from Japan! Coming your way in just (gasp!) 3 weeks.