Quilt by Patricia Belyea
50" x 67"
Teenage pop singer Nori-P (Noriko Sakai) exploded onto the Japanese music scene in 1986. At that time, many novelty yukata cotton designs featured her autograph—a cartoonish little man with three hairs on his head.
For this quilt, I added the red-and-white tomato pattern to a collection of Nori-P yukata cottons as they all shared the same level of exuberance. When the quilt blocks were on the design wall, the whole composition looked like a mush of red. To delineate the design, I decided on skinny yellow sashing. Of course, I did not have a long enough length of yellow cotton on hand so I sewed strips together with wee red connectors. The stitch-pattern is a blown-up version of Nori-P’s signature—made with three rows of hand-stitching.
Nori-P was featured in Patricia’s book, East-Meets-West Quilts, as a project with instructions. Made with vintage yukata cottons, sourced in Japan by Patricia, plus contemporary solids.
The quilt, signed with Patricia’s applique´signature, comes with a Certificate of Authenticity and a custom linen bag. Shipping and insurance are free to a domestic US address.
Patricia founded Okan Arts—a family business that imports vintage Japanese textiles. Inspired by these found fabrics, Patricia incorporates hand-dyed yukata cottons into her quilt designs. An award-winning quilter, Patricia’s quilts have been exhibited at quilt museums across the country.
Forty years ago, Reiko Sudo co-founded Nuno Corporation with Junichi Arai. Although “nuno” simply means fabric in Japanese, Sudo’s textile creations are anything but simple!
The innovative textiles produced by Nuno, conceived by Sudo and her team, blend traditional Japanese dyeing and weaving mastery with advanced modern techniques.
Sudo has been recognized globally for her contributions to Japanese textile design. Her work includes collaborations with architects, fashion designers, and artists, as well as major museum exhibits.
The project was designed by Ed Marquand, Reiko Sudo, and Alfred Birnbaum.
All 140 textiles included in The Nuno Box were produced by Nuno: Reiko Sudo, Hiroko Suwa, Sayuri Shimoda, Kazuhiro Ueno, Yumi Yasui, Jun Mashiba, Yuki Abe, Gaku Masui, Tomoko Fujino, Fumi Ito, Masaaki Takekura, and Hiroaki Takekura.
The texts, translation, editing, and coordination were handled by Alfred Birnbaum.
The letterpress printing was by Steve Morgan, and the binding was completed by Maria Solorio and Teresa Martinez.
The Nuno Box was compiled and constructed at Paper Hammer Studios in Tieton, Washington.