Okan Arts Quilting & Textile Tours to Japan are open for booking. To learn more +click here ABOVE: Grand Prix First Prize Winner by Tokiko Yanazawa PART ONE: Traditional Category, Original Design Category, Wa Category By Patricia Belyea TOKYO JP Yesterday the International Great Quilt Festival opened at the Tokyo Dome with over 50,000 people attending. The Festival is the largest quilt show in the world—spanning seven days—with an average of 250,000 visitors per year. Exhibitions, competitions, special shows, vendors, and more fill the huge baseball stadium. This blog presents just a taste of this extraordinary show. Even so, it takes four posts to share all the photos that were taken. (Please note that I have not included many of the makers’ names as most were written in Japanese characters.) The Traditional Category quilts may be based on traditional designs but the entrants have taken the complexity of their work to a whole new level: Quilts in the Original Design Category span dramatic to charming to humorous. Details again abound with every quilt. Wa means Spirit of Japan. For the Wa Category, some of the participants used vintage and antique Japanese fabrics to make their quilts. Check out the details on these Wa Category quilts: To see PART TWO: Invitational Flower Story Exhibit, Bag Category, Partnership Quilts +click here To see PART THREE: Special Exhibits, Historic Textiles +click here To see PART FOUR: Yoko Saito Retrospective, Grand Prix Winners +click here # # # # # ABOUT US: Okan Arts, a petite family business, is co-owned by mother-daughter duo Patricia Belyea and Victoria Stone. Patricia and Victoria sell Japanese textiles online, host creative quilting experiences, and lead quilting & textile tours to Japan. FOLLOW OKAN ARTS ON INSTAGRAM @okanarts