Cranes at Sunset

 Cranes at Sunset measures 60 x 65.  It is made with fabrics from the Temari Bolts of Fabric sale, my Moms stash and Japanese fabric from Bernice.  There are Ikats, Kasuri, Handwovens, indigo and other small pieces of fabrics.  I think the variety of color against the dark blue background makes the color just pop.

 Here is a closeup.

 Yes the points do not match.  Oh well.  I was lucky to get the pattern from a friend of a friend who took the class from Karen Matsumoto.  The pattern did not have instructions, so I just started cutting away and sewing to what I thought it should look like.

I made a template out of plastic to the size that the block should be.  As you can see, I was off a little here and there.  I cut all the pieces to the same size and sewed them all together.

The greens, reds and yellow pieces were sorted to look like birds in flight.  The border and binding comes from a bolt of kasuri.  The backing fabric is also a Japanese kasuri that used the whole bolt.  The batting came from the Temari sale and was about an inch thick.  I think it was a cotton polyester blend.  The quilting is stitch in a ditch around all the birds and triangles.  I highlighted the border fabric to show the undulating curves in the fabric pattern.  This quilt was given to Bernice to thank her for the beautiful Japanese fabrics that she gave me.

Double Ikat

 This is a picture that Betsy took of my Double Ikat quilt.  I had been saving double ikat fabrics for quite a while now.  Joan knew that I loved Japanese fabrics and gave me a handful of mostly black, grey and white double ikats.  I paired the black and white ikats with my Kaffe ikats and all the single and double ikats from my treasured Japanese fabrics.

 Most of the double ikat is handwoven.  Some of the Kaffe ikats are printed on.  Can you tell which is which?  Look closely at the fabric to notice the difference between a printed and a handwoven.   Kaffe Fassett had a line of colorful checked and dotted double ikats that were woven in India.  After a few years when I tried to get more, he started to use printed fabrics instead of the handwoven. 

I used the diamond and square pattern to show off the fabrics.  I tried to keep the colorful fabrics in the middle with the greys.  The black and white alternate on the top and bottom.

It was hard to cut some of the handwoven fabric.  I used to weave fabric in the 80's, so I know how hard it is to warp the loom and weave the weft fabrics.  It takes a lot of skill and patience.  I was just starting to dye my own threads when I moved to the East Bay and decided to store my loom.

The backing is a pink and grey hawaiian print.