Noriko Endo Exhibition

Noriko Endo, author of the book Confetti Naturescapes, had a solo exhibition at a gallery In Tokyo the last week of January. It was the same time as the giant quilt show in the Tokyo Dome near by so she had lots of traffic!  She estimated that 400 people came in to see her work.

Lee Nakamoto from Accuquilt in Nebraska was there and took these photos to share. Keep in mind while you look at the pictures that the detail is hard to capture in photos, particularly in the large quilts.

Check Noriko's website o see where she'll be teaching in your area.  She is teaching at both Quilt Festivals this year in Cincinnati and Houston and I got her to teach for our new Columbus Modern Quilt guild also!  Looking forward to taking her class myself.

Houston Quilt Market Part I

I got back early this past week from the Houston International Quilt Market. I think it’s the 18^th one for me. Market is for store owners only, not generally to the public. I had a booth there to sell our new book by Noriko Endo called, Confetti Naturescapes : Quilting Impressionist Landscapes.

It was fun to see all my old friends and make new ones as I wandered through hundreds of booths. I mean hundreds. No exaggeration! Many of the largest booths are fabric vendors. My favorite was Free Spirit and the new Jane Sassaman line called Garden Divas! I can’t wait to get my hands on some of this yardage with the bold graphics and beautiful colors. Jane is a master at fabric design. I’ve recommended it before, but her blog is always a great place to go for ideas:

Lots of people from around the globe stopped by the booth to say hello to either Noriko or me. It was terrific to see our new distributor from Barcelona. Our distributors from New Zealand spent some time telling me about their beautiful country. I was ready to get on a plane and go, but I’ll wait for another day!

Author, Susan Brubaker Knapp was by to tell us about her new DVD coming out soon called Master Machine Stitching: Thread Stitching Beyond the Basics that will be available next month. It is a follow up to her first DVD on Machine Stitching. (Watch this blog! Susan and I are doing a trade. I’ll have a copy of her DVD to give away and she’ll have a copy of the Confetti Naturescapes to give away on her blog.) Susan, by the way, has a fantastic blog, where she’s already put up a couple posts about the Quilt Market. Go take a look!

A big trend from fashion was seen at Market….zippers! Like you’ve never seen before! Lecien from Japan had invisible ones with printed tape…prints of trucks and lace and floral. Across from me was a Chinese manufacturer that had zippers with rhinestone teeth, multi-color metallic teeth on one zipper and striped grosgrain tape that was beautiful! People were wearing open zippers around their necks as badge holders!

NQA lights my fire

Not once, but twice I left the NQA really excited about something I saw, with pictures on the camera, ready to get a post up on the blog…and left without writing down the details. The quilt pictured above was made by a group in…ah…Can anybody help me? It reminded me of the same technique I wrote about in my Quilting Party book.  The quilters started with a panoramic photo of their town and then cut it into vertical pieces. Each member made their section.  The sum is greater than the parts! I must say, though, the parts are each pretty great, too.

This technique created a very effective quilt which would be especially great in a public space in their town, any town. It would also work beautifully in a hospital lobby, town hall, library etc.

I think I may suggest this to my quilting guild as a great civic project (not to mention fun activity) to commemorate some of our historic and picturesque “Main Streets” here in central Ohio area. 

If you need a good public service project idea for a quilt guild, high school art class, junior high sewing class, (insert group name!), here it is.

Don’t see moose too often in quilts!

This quilt reminded me of Noriko Endo’s landscape quilts, especially with the tiny animals Noriko and this quilter added.  I sent this photo to Norkio, actually, to show her how effective the use of white tulle was in this quilt to simulate sunrays coming through the trees in the forest.  After the quilt was completed, strips of white tulle were placed on top with some branches overlapping them.  Take a look here at the close-up:

What a great idea! The more I see, the more I want to quilt all day long!

PS: Who made this quilt??

Confetti Naturescapes at the printer (and on my table)!

This past week, Noriko Endo’s book, Confetti Naturescapes started the last leg of its long journey to the printers.

Of course, it’s already been a long journey getting the book ready to go to the printer. From initial concept through the writing, photographing, book design, editing, proof-reading, more photographs, more editing….It’s a process, but one that ended last week when I dropped the final proof in the FedEx box.

This is such an exciting time for me, my book designer, my authors. No matter how many books we do here at Dragon Threads, when that book arrives and I’m holding it in my hands, it’s as wonderful to me as the very first one we did.

However, before a book goes to print, there’s such a flurry of work to be done: final edits, photo retouching, design tweaks, phone calls, emails, more edits. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed sometimes when a press deadline looms. Then, of course, we wait! The whole process of printing and shipping (by boat from Thailand) takes about two months. But guess what! The proofs (courtesy of DHL) arrived today and are on my kitchen table. Oh, are they gorgeous!

Even better, while I’m waiting for the books, I’ve been able to enjoy one of Noriko’s spectacular quilts here, close to home. As I noted in a previous post, her quilt, Autumn Reflection #2, is on display in a show at the Richard Ross Museum in Delaware, Ohio.

This really is a breathtaking quilt, and seeing the quilt in person makes me even more excited to see her work in print. Look at this detail! The lower part was water reflections, which really glisten from the fibers she captured in the layers of tulle. Her stitching adds so much dimension to the piece. 

The quilt was marked “Not For Sale” but I hear that it is being sold to a collector in town. Most of Noriko's quilts are sold and sometimes before she is even finished with the quilting!

If you'd like to see more of her work she has a nice website with her international teaching schedule too: www.norikoendo.com.

In the meantime, if you’re lucky enough to live in central Ohio, go see her quilt for yourself.