Kyo wa tanoshii Hinamatsuri
It’s Hinamatsuri, or Girl’s Day, in Japan! I love Hinamatsuri. Every year I put up my little display of Hina quilts, dolls and figurines. This year is no exception!
Hina Matsuri!
Happy Hina Matsuri! The new item in my Hina display is the washi paper version in the upper left. I bought it at Books Sanseido at Mitsuwa and crafted it over the weekend. It was a fun kit, even if I don’t read any Japanese.
I have lots of news to share very shortly, but until tomorrow, have a beautiful Girls Day!
Mitsuwa Grocery store… or Prepping for Hina Matsuri
One of the most popular posts on my blog is this one about Hina Matsuri, or Girls Day in Japan. As March 3rd approaches, I am slowly putting up my Hina doll display, and took a trip to Mitsuwa, our local Japanese grocer (which is not so local to me, it’s an hour drive). I love Mitsuwa. I can’t read any of the signs unless they are also in English, and half the time we buy stuff we have no idea what it is, but it looks good, smells good, and other people are buying it.
Mitsuwa is having it’s anniversary this week, and they had these special pastries from the pastry shop inside. They looked like apples and had a creme/apple filling inside. It was so wonderful, and they are only around for a short time at the store inside Mitsuwa (which is called Pastry House Hippo… love that!).
Also inside Mitsuwa is a Japanese bookstore, called Books Sanseido. They have Japanese quilting books and quilt magazines! I love to go in and browse, and I eventually come out with a couple of things. Japanese magazines are really expensive, so I only buy one or two.
Later on I will post my Hina display!
Hina Matsuri!
It’s Hina Matsuri, and here is my display! I have a few more things in my Hina collection for this year, including a solar bobble doll set, a beautiful cotton scarf that is hanging as the background, candy from a trip to Mitsuwa in Arlington Heights, and my weekly quilt from my Japanese Doll series. The center item on the platform is sugar candy.
Click here to see my display from last year!
I still have my kimono Hello Kitty doll, but she’s not in the picture. I bought some hina-arare but I ate it already. There some more hina snacks in the plastic bag on the left of the picture I saved to the actual day. My DH has become quite enamored with the mochi cakes in the fridge I bought, so let’s hope they last until tonight!
The next festival is Hanami, or cherry blossom viewing. It’s far too cold here yet for that, we still have snow. But it would be a welcome to spring!
Commence the Showing and Telling
I know you’re waiting with baited breath to see the stuff I got at the IQA Chicago Show. Wait no more! Here it all is!!
One of the things I like best about the quilt show is the ability to get stuff you can’t get in one single quilt store. I especially like shopping for new thread so I can see all of the varieties and weights, and especially the colors. I stuck to 30 and above weight cottons for this trip. Also shown are the smallest yo-yo maker and a new ribbon flower maker I had not yet seen from Clover.
Next up is hand dyed stuff. I always spend a ridiculous amount of money on Cherrywood fabrics, as I find their fabrics to be top notch. I also buy from Artfabrik (Laura Wasilowski), Frieda Anderson, and Wendy Richardson. Wendy dyes in the greatest mottled greens, purples, and browns, and I love her dyed damask napkins. They are a treat to sew on.
If you know me, you know I love things from Japan, and the Maeda Imports booth has lovely fabrics from Japan. These are cotton furoshiki (wrapping) cloths. I especially love the Hina Matsuri (Doll festival or girl’s day) and Kodomo no Hi (children’s day) with the koi cloths. I also love, love, love the kawaii cats and fishbowls. I also got some Japanese knotting cords for some future project.
One thing you won’t have at a quilt show is a lack of patterns, books, and DVDs to inspire you. Kits are popular, because they can be made up as is, and folks like to make what they see on display or in the picture. Here are a couple of pin kits (one of wool and one of shibori silk) because I love pins. I also love this Crabapple Hill pattern of embriodered haunted houses called Hocuspocusville. And I love the Quilting Arts booth, where I picked up a couple of DVDs. One is season 2 of the QA tv show, and one by Melanie Testa.
I am not a huge purchaser of novelty fabrics, but I know a couple of people who would appreciate the motifs on a quilted project from these. Some racecar fabric for a certain father, and some Cicely Mary Barker Flower Fairies for a certain mother in law. Isn’t that face striking?
Ah, the odds and sods. The grey looking thing is a kimono sleeve, vintage, with sparkly threads in it. It will become a purse. The round things are strips of hand dyed wool from one of the many wool booths at the show. The sparkly stuff in the middle is Stewart Gill rainbow texturizers. The Fuzzy Nabber is a washable lint roller, which I have one of already and just adore. And the little fruits are the weird kind of thing where I could have bought the book and materials to make them myself, but I know I would never do them, so would rather buy the finished products themselves. They have loops for putting on a keychain or project.
Now for the things I made at the show. At the MIU booth (Quilting Arts/Interweave area) you can take classes on the show floor for $10. These are the 3 classes I took (besides Surviving the Runway). The first made the background fabrics, which were taught by Melanie Testa. The doll class was by Debbie Crane. The little charms were the resin class by the Little Windows company. All were great!
Last but not least is my tiara from the Art Quilt reception, and the pin award I recieved for being runner up.
Hope you enjoyed Show and Tell!