Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival: Moomin Stories, Part 1

The Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival, held in Tokyo Dome.

The major draw was the Moomin quilt exhibition, based on Tove Jansson's stories. Moomintroll and co. have been popular for decades in Japan.

Since 2014 is the 100th anniversary of creator Tove Jansson's birth, various events have been held all over the world to celebrate her work. This is Japan's contribution: around 50 quilt works that lovingly, painstakingly reproduce some of Jansson's drawings. One work was attributed to one quilter (I would say they were all female and Japanese), and the works as a whole were produced by Yoko Saito, a major figure in the quilt world.

It's almost a shame that they simply look like paintings from afar, because that means that the incredible attention to detail goes unnoticed. I recommend clicking on each photo to see them as magnified as possible.

A quilt that introduces all of the characters.

Some of the quilts had a trippy quality, as you can see above, and others, such as the one below, had a faintly sinister feel to them.

More will be shown in the next post.