Veggie Quilt for Japan Explained

Today I would like to take some time to explain the Veggie Market Quilt for Japan Relief Project for those who are new to my place.

Like many others I would have really liked to be able to hop a plane to Japan to help people immediately after the earthquake last March, or better yet, brought some Japanese people to the U.S.A. to share our home. Neither of those options was available, nor was donating a million dollars to fly over supplies.

What is a crafty gal to do besides helping with local donations and regular praying?  Why, gather her friends to create a quilt to auction, that's what!  As I put this idea out to my friends, online and here at home, the project grew. The quilt contains fabric and embroidery from all over the United States, and even Canada and Belgium.

The quilt will be auctioned on Ebay by "mom.wald" the third week of January, the 15^th through the 21^st , when we are all longing for our vegetable gardens that lie sleeping under the snow.  

Proceeds from the auction will benefit ongoing earthquake relief through the Global Giving Group. To find out more about the Global Giving Group visit Global Giving.

This quilt is a compilation of donated, new, fruit and vegetable themed embroideries and fabrics. The embroidered squares are twelve inches across. The fruit and veggie fabrics are six inch squares pieced into twelve inch four patch blocks.

Altogether it measures 54 inches wide and 74 inches long and weighs five pounds making it a generous lap quilt or large hanging. Our quilter used a nice compact batting of 80% cotton / 20% polyester and nice tight stippling, so it would even make a beautiful table topper.

There is wonderful attention to detailing in the quilting, such as steam in a little embroidered pot.

For a history of the making of the quilt visit my place here. You will find a collection of update posts detailing the various embroideries and fabrics.

Visiting Veggie Market Quilt for Japan Page will take you directly to a page here at my place dedicated entirely to the quilt.

The theme of the quilt was inspired by the vintage anthromorphic collectibles produced in Japan in the 50's and 60's, vintage embroidery patterns, and my love of Japanese food which is chuck full of vegetables.

Don't know what "anthromorphic" is, they are the cute creatures that are items such as flowers and fruits with faces. For some excellent examples visit Cathygio's collection at Cathygio on Flickr.

A selection of vintage fruit and veggie patterns that were available to chose from can be found here, Vintage Veggie Patterns Gallery .

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me at momwaldsplace@gmail.com.

A big Thank You to P over at The Way I Sew It It for not only doing beautiful quilting on it, but for these great photos.