My new favorite red & white quilt….”Composition II” by Shoko Sakai, Japan

 

I “found” this red and white beauty at this years 16th European Patchwork Meeting 2010  in the Val d’Argent, Alsace (Region in France). It was part of the the “Nihon Vogue and JHIA (Japan Handicraft Instructor’s Association)  Exhibition in Liépvre at the Espace Exposition. For all Alsace Patchwork Meeting “pilgrims” that was Exhibition Site No. 20.

The quilt is 2 x 2 meters big and is pieced with “thousands” of little red and white squares. Shoko Sakai won a very well deserved gold prize in the traditional quilt category at the “10th Quilt Nihon Exhibition”, Tokyo. 

It reminded me of my “Little Elements of Fire” quilts, especially the" “all white” part. And as the red silk patches in  my quilt “deteriorate”  with every further washing I was thinking of making myself another version of my quilt anyway.  So this quilt definitely is a very welcome inspiration….

You will find some more pictures  in my flickr file.

I have to mention how Shoko Sakai quilted this. As you can (hopefully) see from the picture above she used red quilting and/or embroidery thread for the red blocks and white thread for the white ones. She quilted every big or small square block individually with sometimes very different patterns. I am not sure that everything is hand quilted but most of  it definitely is. It is perfectly quilted so there could be machine quilting on some of the blocks, i really could not tell.

Luckily (certainly no touching allowed) the quilt was not hanging plan on the wall therefore I was able to get a glimpse at the (all white) back of the quilt with some of the red quilting showing. 

Little Red Riding Hood (finished in 2008)

 

Chinese Red cotton for the wolf medallion, the little red riding hood's hood and the border, linen in five different shades of white for the appliqué one shade of white for every layer of the picture. 5 different shades of beige for the vertical linen panel and all the different shade of white I could find in my cotton stash for the horizontal panel of little squares.

In the end the details did not really show up in the finished quilt but as long as I know they are there….

White cotton, beige linen and the Chinese red cotton for the disappearing nine patch on the back. The quilting thread is red sulky thread 12w.

The little red riding hood appliqué is inspired by the the beautiful work of Patricia Zapata (www.alittlehut.com)

 

 

The beautiful work of Patricia Zapata ( a little hut) started this quilt, though it wasn't the best idea to work with linen for this appliqué adaptation of her paper wall art the fraying drove me crazy:

 

The finished top in front of my window with a sample block from the backing:

 

Big bad wolf embroidery white on red (upside down on my ironing board) with the patched back showing:

 

For the back I choose this simple pattern; it is called disappearing nine patch and very easy to piece. You’ll find the perfect pattern tutorial from Helen on her blog

 

Last but not least the quilting with pretty big stitches and not a fancy pattern at all. Just long even lines all over the quilt, except  for the appliqué part:

 

Little Red Riding Hood – end of story…

Nähen in den Mai – “Sewing into Mai”

A virtual sewing bee with the Quiltfriends started at 07:00 pm on 29. April and ended for me at 04:00 am on 01.Mai 2010 with a yet an unfinished “Nähbox” (SewingBox).

My “Dear Baby Jane Stuff–Nähbox” with handles….

We had two tutorials to choose from:

one was Nickel-Pickles Sewing Box - there is an English language version on Nickel-Pickles blog

and a life Tutorial fromPatchBea – one of the Quiltfriends – via forumposts for a little suitcase.

A funny night with lot’s of things to learn by trial and error… and I really hope we will do it again!

I wanted to make the sewing box and therefore I needed a really long zipper. As the only one I had was black I also choose black linen (by Ikea) and the rosé-ish fabric “City Girl” by Kitty Yoshida (a Bernatexfabric); oh and and an appliqué bambi I made from the City Girl fabric some time ago.

This is how the WIP looked like at about 04:00 am on Mai 1st – a “Nähbox” (Sewing Box) big enough to hold all my Dear Jane Stuff – the book, the small Clover ironing/cutting board, my DBJ File Folder with the finished blocks and all my sewing notion. As you can see I did not really follow Nickles-Pickles instructions to the point. And for a first trial it is a bit wonky…

WIP picture – Nähbox/Sewing Box inside

WIP picture – Nähbox/Sewing Box outside

In the end I decided to add some handles – now it looked more like the suitcase and the little bambi ended up on its side. Next time I will plan (think) a little ahead.