Catching Up - Quilting Season

Wow, time flies!  It's already the end of October 2015!
Many things happen when I blink my eyes.  And I am struggling between what I want to do and what I should do or have to do.  Have you experienced the lack of energy?  Sometimes I don't feel like doing even what I love to do.

What do you do to motivate yourself?
I found my new (old) love in music.  I always liked  classical music, especially piano sound.  This time, it started with piano sounds again, but it dragged me into J-Pop and K-Pop.  The music gives me energy to keep me going, and it comforts me with romantic lyrics.  Sometimes you can feel the season with the songs.  It amazes me that some songs (I don't say all of them) the melody and lyrics combine together and create the harmony and its own world/scene.  I'm not good at creating the beautiful sentences (as you can see here), but I appreciate them very much.

People are born with senses.  Seeing, Hearing, Smelling, Touching, Tasting.  Beyond these five senses, we have feelings, and we can create things.  I am thankful that I can enjoy art & music with these senses.

The month of September, my quilting season starts every year.  I started with Quilting in the garden (in Livermore, CA).  Beautiful outdoor show at the large nursery.  The colorful quilts and the flowers really amused my eyes.

In mid October, we have the biggest quilt show in the area, Pacific International Quilt Festival (PIQF).  My friend, Kanako's quilt was displayed there.  It is made with PamKitty fabrics.  Isn't this so colorful and cheerful?  Love it!  (photo cropped to hide her identity)

The quilts that caught my eyes this year was the modern category.  I thought I would never be interested in Modern Quilts.  But WRONG!  It is quite interesting!  It is my goal to learn the modern quilt and twist in my own way.  These are the quilts I liked.

A week later, I departed to Houston for the International Quilt Market.  I helped Lecien/COSMO embroidery thread booth.  You can see the booth I helped to set up in the background of this photo.  Ruth Chandler did book-signing at our booth.

 We were able to sneak-view the quilt festival quilts in Houston.  This year is MODA's 40th anniversary and they have displayed many quilts that shows MODA's history.  This show has the highest quality, best of the best quilts from all over the world.  My favorite out of all the wonderful quilts is this one.

Someday, I want to design and make something like this.
My love of quilt-making still continues...

Happy quilting!
-K

Ready for PIQF

Sorry for the long absense.

I was so busy like I couldn't believe. Now I have time to sit down to rest... well, it's not going to happen. It's time for Pacific International Quilt Festival! I dropped my quilts today for the show, and tomorrow I am helping Prairie Queens to set up their very first booth at PIQF. They made two kits using my patterns and they are going to bring most of my patterns there to sell. What a priviledge for me as a new designer to have wonderful shop like this to feature me!

This is "Twinkle Twinkle" made of Japanese fabric from Yuwa. It's called KS Collection which has 90 sku, beautiful line. Using this collection, I can probably design 10 quilts easily. Can't find them anywhere else!(except in Japan) Usually, the kaleidoscope block is difficult to make. But I came up with easier way. You can make this block from pinwheel with half square triangle! You should try this method. Using dark background might be interesting. Does anyone want to try it?

Next is "Promise in Paris". I used "Celebration" by Brenda Riddle for Lecien. This line has soft pastel with beautiful flower design. With simple applique design, it has French Country feeling. You can make this quilt in many different theme. Such as fall color, blue & yellow, red & white, taupe color, plaid only, etc... You can make totally different look!

I have many more to come, so keep checking my blog, please!

Talk to you soon!

Keiko

Back to School...

My son is going back to school tomorrow, and my daughter is taking off to college. Then I hope I can get back to my regular schedule. This summer went really quickly, I think it went too fast. I had plan to do this and that. I was hoping to make several quilts for fun. Guess what, I am way behind the schedule, and I forced myself to complete one which made me feel so tired and sick. I'm still recovering from it, but very satisfied with it.

Here is the picture of the quilt, only part of it. It is made with "Rouenneries" by French General of Moda. Beautiful fabric, and I didn't want to cut it up. But this simple design worked well. I sent it to long arm quilter who does excellent job every time.

I'm going to enter in PIQF. If this quilt gets in the show, I will let you know so that you can see it in person, maybe...

Look forward to more quilts that I'm going to work in September...