Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Wagashi

As you know, the theme for this new Twelve by Twelve challenge was "Sweet".
Wagashi are Japanese sweets and I just love them. They are sweet, of course, and so beautiful. If you've never seen any, you have to do an image search in google, and you will see how pretty they are, almost too pretty to eat!
Actually "wa" means "Japanese-style" and "kashi" means "confectionery". Together they become "wagashi".
One of the big challenges in learning Japanese is to master the writing system. I now know my hiragana and katakana pretty well. But of course I am only starting to study kanji.
Anyway, for this quilt, I decided to print some fabric with the word wagashi written in hiragana:
わがし
I tried lots of things, made many test prints, and finally settled on using only the hiragana わ (wa). By the way, "wa" means "Japanese-style", but it also means "peace" and "harmony".
The flavours and shapes of wagashi are often inspired by seasons and flowers. This is why I added this sakura on my quilt.
Here's another close-up.
And now I'm off to the Twelve by Twelve blog to see what my sweet friends have done for this last challenge of the series.

9 comments:

Ali Honey said...

You are getting very clever both with your new language and your printing. Have you got a keyboard that types Japanese characters?
I do know that in Japan they often buy just one kiwifruit often the gold variety and package it up beautifully and give as a gift which is displayed on the mantelpiece. ( melons too I think )

Micki said...

This is so interesting. Love the colors.

sharon young said...

This piece is stunning, Francoise, the colours and the composition are so beautiful, it has such a clean simplified design, it feels very Japanes.

Martine said...

I like it, really

ViDerTextil said...

merci pour toutes ces infos ! bien que pas de fan du rose, j'aime bien le résultat dans ton quilt!

jenclair said...

Beautiful! Love the way the letters add such an interesting graphic touch and the way the quilting on the pink brings the eye back to the text!

Anonymous said...

Wow, this is great work, Francoise!

Linda’s Textiles said...

Love it Francoise! The Japanese sweets are certainly beautiful - good inspiration for your quilt.The lettering looks great too.

Nat Palaskas said...

Happy New Year to you too Francoise. Love the cherry blossoms and I miss them from our last spring in Japan! I have been looking at twelve by twelve theme blogs, they are most interesting, thanks for sharing. If I go to the quilt show here in Melbourne this year I will look out for your quilts and take photos to send them to you - Enjoy Nat