"Japanese throw quilt" for Louie

I got a phone call from Louis and he said that he had a quilt that needed repair.  I was thinking patchwork, lots of holes in it, probably not salvegable.  I was srong.  The top and bacing where in great shape, but any quilting stitches to hold the batting together were long gone, and all of the cotton batt had fallen to the bottom.

I wanted Louis to find a quilting design the he liked, and sent him some ideas, none of which were right.  Then I asked him,"Please, if you can, tell me what you think of when you look at that quilt?  That will give me an idea of where to go looking for quilting ideas."

This is his response.

This quilt is probably one of thousands of its kind. It is a common dorm blanket from Kokusai Budo Daigaku, a very serious Martial Arts University in a small fishing town in Eastern Japan.

It was my dorm blanket the first year I lived there, training in Judo 4-8 hours a day every day from 2013-2014.

The following year, I had the opportunity to move to Tokyo City to pursue more training at the Kodokan, which is the source dojo of all Judo in the world.

I took the blanket from my dorm and moved three hours by train with all of my belongings into a small apartment in the city, where I lived alone and trained at many universities, schools, private practices, and of course at the Kodokan from 2014-2015. The lodging was small. Only enough room for a bed, a toilet, and a hot plate stove for cooking, but I made it work and focused on my studies.

When my time was up in 2015, I brought the blanket with me when I returned to Kokusai Budo Daigaku with the intention of leaving it at the school.

But when it came down to my last day in the country, I couldn't bring myself to leave the blanket behind. It had comforted me through so many battles and so much change.

In the end, I see this quilt as a representation of a major chapter in my lifelong study of Budo, or the Martial Path. It represents acceptance, comfort, change, and of course reminds me of the many battles I fought against the hundreds and hundreds of nameless opponents I faced every day I lived and trained in Japan. The moments alone. The endless train rides. Tokyo City nights. Snow. Warmth.

When I look at this blanket, I think of all of those times and what they mean to me.

Looking forward to seeing the finished product!

Thank you,

-Louie

 

 

I was hoping to be able to save the batting, but when I looked at it a second time, nope, not even for a donation quilt.  So, that's gone to the bag of fabric donation.  I had a blue backing fabric almost the same color as the original, so that was the new backing, and then used the original backing to make a new binding.  I hope that this will provide Louie with many more years of memories.  What a lovely story, and the amazing people that you get to meet through this business.