Being
illiterate is very difficult at times, but I do the best I can.
Quilt “Week”
and the Hokkaido Quilt Show were held Thursday – Saturday in Sapporo last week.
I found out about it through an events listing for Sapporo. I looked the
Japanese website for the show and with the help of google translate figured out
most of the important details. I figured out the location and how to get there
by bus and subway. The website said
admission was 1500 yen at the door or a discounted price of 1200 yen for
tickets purchased at the convenience store. I went to the convenience store and
said in Japanese, I want to buy a ticket, and pointed to the quilt show logo on
my iPod. The clerk pointed to the back
of the store. I thought, oh, no, what
did I say to make him point me to the restrooms? As it turned out, he was pointing me to a
machine in the back of the store that dispensed tickets. The machine was in Japanese, of course, so I
needed his help. He poked around at the
machine for several minutes, then rattled off something in Japanese and gave me
the crossed arm signal. The only words I
understood were May 15. Maybe he was
saying I needed to buy the ticket before the show started, which was the 16th,
but I don’t know. Anyway, I didn’t get the discount ticket.
I got
to the show location a little before the opening time of 10 am and waited to
buy my ticket. While I was waiting, a
woman sat down next to me and started talking to me in Japanese. She didn’t speak
English and I didn’t understand most of what she was saying. I did understand that she wanted to know
where I was from, and I could answer that.
The quilt show offered several hour and a half classes with small
projects for 500 yen (also known as one coin) and I showed her the picture on
my iPod of one I wanted to take that started at 10:30 am. That she understood and pulled out projects
from three classes at the quilt show the day before that she had taken. She wanted to take the same class I did and
knew where to go for it, so I followed her. She didn’t ask my weight, but did
ask how old I am and told me she is 65. Here we are together.
She
told everyone who came into the class area, “Amerika desu” and pointed to me.
Very soon we had a table full. They made me feel like a celebrity. No one else spoke English
including the teacher, but I was able to follow along and even understood some
of the teacher’s directions in Japanese. (She said ko ko ka ra a lot to tell us where to start stitching.)
We each picked out a kit - none were the same. Mine had lining fabric with some writing in English. I wasn’t
able to finish the project, a little drawstring bag, in the allotted class
time, but I did enough that I will be able to finish it at home.
I hadn’t
planned on taking the next class, a little key ring with a fabric insert, but
the first class was so fun that I came back in the afternoon. (I have really missed taking classes and the social part of stitching in a group).Three of the
morning ladies who were at my table, including the one who helped me, were back so we all
sat together again. This project was very quick and I finished it during the
class.
The
show itself was smaller than I expected (the whole thing, including the vendors
and stage area, was held in a gymnasium) and I didn’t see any ribbons or
awards, so I don’t think it was a competition.
There were a couple of areas with quilts by the same artist/quilter. One
area had a sign that said “Gallery Talk” and gave a time. I thought, I’ll come back for that. Then I remembered, I wouldn’t understand what
was being said. Oh, well. Photos of the
quilts to the left of the entry area were allowed, but not of the quilts on the
right. I don’t know what the distinction
was. There were only two quilts with
selling prices, maybe they were for some type of fund raiser? There were no
miniature quilts or crazy quilts. In the
non-photo area there were quite a few of what I would call traditional block
pieced quilts. There were several of the hexagon paper pieced kind of quilts (“grandma’s
flower garden” type designs) and the little pieces for making those quilts were
sold by several of the vendors, so I’m guessing that is popular here. My
favorite quilt was this one of the stitching group. It had a lot of three dimensional appliqued
items.
Here are
a few more of the quilts I liked and was allowed to take photos of.
The
vending area was very different from any US quilt show I’ve been to. Only one booth had fabric bolts and it was
Kanariya, the big store in Sapporo. Many booths had small cut fabric (like fat
quarters) and signs that said “Made in USA”. There were many similar booths with little
kits for bags and cutesy things. The
kits contained all the pieces needed already precut. In the US, I would buy a pattern and my own
fabric. I wonder if the precut kits are
because the average recreational stitcher here doesn’t have the space to store
all the stash a quilter in the US accumulates. Maybe it’s easier to have only the little
pieces needed and not a lot of extra.
I only
purchased a couple of things – a packet of small pieces of Japanese fabrics and
a little kit (with all the precut pieces) to make a business card holder. The kit directions are in Japanese, but I
should be able to figure it out.
I
thoroughly enjoyed my day at the show.
After the show I passed through Odori Park which is now full of flowers.
Isn’t Hokkaido beautiful?
