Japanese Fairy Tale Quilt

What is in the gift box?  What lurks in the shadows? Whose soul will be captured?
I grew up reading Fairy Tales. When I discovered Andrew Lang's Coloured Fairy Tale Books. I was hooked. I spent many happy hours hidden away in my room reading the tales.

This is my Japanese Fairy Tale Quilt.

The quilt tells the following story beginning with the center panel which in seen from far away. You are peering through a privacy screen of an Oriental Court and into gardens where members of the court are seen sitting near a stream or walking the beautiful paths filled with cherry blossoms, dogwoods and chrysamums. The cross hatched quilting hides your prying eyes from the women.

You can see the deep blue streams with rocks along the banks.

The surrounding panels show what we could not have imagined. The stream not peaceful at all is a torrent of waterfalls and rushing waters. The quilting echos the rounded torrents and the shape of the fans which seen to create the wind which causes even more waves.

The blue flowered panels give you a botany lesson in which you can identify the beautiful flowers that grace the gardens. Sprays of water are now adorning the sprays of cherry blossoms, dogwoods and chrysamums.

 

The flowers again repeat the motifs in the fans and the delicate quilting in gold rayon satin thread create the delicate hand holds of the fans and flowers on the deep blue fabric.

Now we get a closeup of the women adorning the garden. One is identifying a quilted flower she holds in her hand. Another is reading a scroll, perhaps of poety or letter from a lover.

This is panel that holds my heart. We see three generations of women, Mother, Daughter and Granddaugher. The little is being discussed. Grandmother listens while her daughter relates the tale.

 Flowers, fans, ribbons, and the questions of contemplations are everywhere.  So here is the Fairy Tale. Fairy Tales are teaching stories for children and the parents that read them as well. Even today we watch Fairy Tale movies of all kinds, its not the happy ending we remember in the end, but the journey through life the characters are faced with. Here we are looking at the Fairy Tale of Family. It may not have a happy ending but the journey has been enlightening.

The corner panels are the trees filled with cranes. Cranes have a special place in Japanese Culture carrying the banner of honor and loyalty. The treetops echo quilted in the mirroring images of the fans and waterfalls throughout the quilt.

What more would you use to describe the women who have held this to be true for the men they loved? Is this not the Fairy Tale of the women you have known?