Omiyage Fabric Selection

Robert Kauffman - Imperial Collection

This is the fabric I used on the Pinecone Omiyage. As you can see there are quite a few different elements to this fabric and I carefully selected different focus points for each square. I actually cut quite a few extra squares of this fabric and then selected the ones that featured nice sections of the design and balanced the colours with the black and maroon.

Unknown Fabric Designer

Unfortunately I can't tell you who makes this fabric. I found this in the oriental section of my local fantastic quilt fabric store. I also found a purple colourway when I was at the 2010 Quilt & Craft Fair and bought a fat quarter of it. This pink colourway was used to make the Sakura Omiyage. I really loved each of the motifs - the turtles, cranes, sakura blossoms and oriental dragons, and I tried to pick out one of these motifs on each of the Sakura Omiyage petals.

Please comment if you recognise this fabric so I can note who the designer is.

Completed Omiyage

Pinecone Omiyage

YES! It was finished in time for Christmas and received by a delighted Oma. When she got it home she said it even matched a bedspread one of her friends made her some years ago. Mark must have subconsciously channeled his colour memory when I asked his opinion of what colours to use.

As I have mentioned previously, this design is from the book "Omiyage" by Kumiko Sudo. My suggestions for anyone attempting her patterns is to expect to handsew most of it. The patterns are small and intricate. The pinecone is made up of lots of small squares sewn in such a way that they form the pattern. It all had to be hand sewn because there was no way I could get the machine into the tiny places and hold all the fabric just so as I sewed. There is a nice sized pouch inside, which I actually made a little larger than the pattern specified.

Sakura Omiyage

This is another design from Kumiko Sudo's book. I made this for a good friend of mine and I know she has received it so I don't have to keep it secret anymore. I was able to machine sew the start of the petals, but the rest was all handsewn. The back has a little pouch, so small you can only fit tiny trinkets, but it is a really pretty design.

Back of Sakura Omiyage

Here is a view of the back with the pouch open. I don't know if you can see from the photos, but the little tassle ends are also different. The Sakura had rectangular tassle ends with no padding, where the Pinecone had square tassle ends with a small piece of batting to pad it. I liked trying the different tassle ends to see which I preferred and I do love the padded ends on the Pinecone a little more. There are 5 different ways to do fabric bead tassle ends in the book.

I know I've been asked what fabric I used on these designs as well. I will find the fabrics and photograph them for you soon.