Festival of Broken Needles

How quickly the years go.  It doesn't seem very long ago that I was writing a post about the Japanese tradition of hari-kuyo, the Festival of Broken Needles, and here we are on 8th February again.  You can read the post here, with all the details and there are some great photos of a ceremony here.

This year I have been putting my bent, blunt and broken needles in a little cylindrical tin and today I've thanked them, wrapped them and settled them down to rest.  The little bag is decorated with Cretan Stitch and Herringbone Stitch and is my TAST2012 piece for the past two weeks.  I've put a loop on it so that it can hang with my other TAST "baubles" (which are now on various themes, not all Christmas).  I loved doing the Herringbone, I could get quite a good rhythm going but the Cretan made me think - thread under the needle, thread over the needle, oops, try again....it needs more practice as I think it's a nice stitch.  This week the TAST stitch is......Chevron Stitch.

Australian designer, stitcher and all round textile wonder woman, Lynette Anderson, has posted about her meeting with our sensei, Bryan, take a look here.
Another great report on the Tokyo Quilt Festival is here.   Better make yourself a cup of coffee!

Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival 2012

I have been reading some great blog posts about the Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival 2012.  Enjoy lots of quilting eye candy and read about the crowds:

I love Bryan's account here: 
http://japanesetextileworkshops.blogspot.com/2012/01/tokyo-quilt-festival.html


Julie has shared four posts and lots of pictures here, here, here and here.

Carin has shared some of her photographs, Framed Quilts here and some highlights here and here

Jessica shared her experiences and some great quilts here:
http://www.sewhomegrown.com/2012/01/tokyo-international-quilt-festival-2012.html

I really appreciate bloggers taking the time to post about these international events, it means we can all share them in a little way.  Thank you for a little piece of Japan.

Lynette Anderson has been blogging about her visit to Japan and her experience at the Tokyo festival.  She also met up with our man in Japan, Bryan.  Read about her trip and enjoy lots of photos on her website here:  http://lynetteandersondesigns.typepad.com/lynette_anderson_designs/
and enjoy Bryan's report on their meeting here.  I can just picture the scene!

I have been reading my Tokyo Lonely Planet and surfing the net and making copious lists in preparation for the few days I will have in Tokyo in April before I join the Japanese Textile Study Tour.  It's getting very exciting.  I am aiming for a mix of textiles, history and culture, gardens, food and shopping and will try to share it via this blog.  I think I may need to sleep for the whole month of March in preparation.  I have also spent a long time today, while waiting for the snow to start and throwing logs on the fire, reading your wonderful blog posts and I hope I have now caught up with all the lovely comments you leave me, I appreciate them massively.  I must now away to rest, Sam's party has left me rather weary - maybe I'm too old for ball pools and padded activity centres!  (Just after this photo I crashed to the floor on my derriere by the way!)