Memories of South Korea

 Some time ago online, I randomly came across an artist's installation project called The Cherry Blossom Project. The artist was Sara Cook, author of a book on the Korean textile art of Bojagi, and she was inviting participants to sew strings of traditional Korean 'mandus' (dumplings) in Korean silk organza which will be hung as a mass installation in late May at the Phoenix Arts Space in Brighton.  The reason I decided to pay to sign up was for the opportunity to try stitching with this interesting fabric.

I had seen the  wonderful stiff and gauzy silk organza in the many traditional costume tailoring shops in Korea, and I had worn a polyester version when I rented a traditional hanbok costume to do the tourist visit to one of the Royal Palaces.  It felt crisp and cool against the skin, even on the warm day, and surprisingly not scratchy.  I only saw it on rolls in tailor shops, I didn't see anything that looked aimed at the domestic sewist but I wasn't really looking then. This is the fabric used to make the pieced Bojagi patchwork which looks like stained glass when held up to the light.  When I got home, I bought a book and then found out that it is very difficult and expensive to buy the authentic silk organza from the UK.  

me posing in a cheesy way at the rental shop's photo corner 

in my tourist hanbok costume.  The jacket is made in polyester organza.

My kit arrived, with five pieces of starched Korean silk organza, which Sara had dyed with natural colours in shades of pink.  Apparently she has been trying out different dyes so there will be subtle colour differences across the installation.  The instructions showed how to fold in a quarter-inch seam allowance  - the fabric instantly holds a crisp crease just by marking it with a bone folder.  I thought the organza would fray more, but perhaps the starch is preventing that and I had no issues.  The crisp organza has a real 'spring' to it, so the dumplings hold their shape like little firm marshmallows - when you pat them down, they spring back up into shape. It was easy to stitch with a whip stitch, folding the squares on the diagonal to create the dumpling shape.  After stitching the five graduated sizes, I strung them on the provided cord and took photos.  Then I boxed the string up and posted it back to the artist. I look forward to seeing photos of the finished installation.  And if I ever go back to South Korea, I will make efforts to acquire some of this wonderful translucent fabric.

This week has just been lots of hand sewing binding down, and sewing hanging sleeves onto the two wallhangings.  I started with the little Crib Quilts American Country panel that I had quilted with clamshells. The map of 'Quilt Town' includes the Crib Quilts shop in Tokyo, which made me wonder if it was a real map of their neighbourhood.  But when DH helped me compare it to Google Maps, there isn't much correlation apart from the railroad tracks.

Next was the New Zealand 'Turning Twenties' quilt.  Not a thing of beauty due to all the busy fabrics featuring NZ motifs, but it brings back lots of memories of my 2024 trip.  DH prefers the back of it, which is less busy as I was using up all the big leftover pieces.  

Next was the digital panel of tea pots. I had found when quilting this that the panel is not square on, but actually a little skewed.  This, combined with there being a lower density of quilting in the lower section where the drawers are, is making it hang quite badly with a big bulge at the bottom.  I tried steaming it flatter which helped but gravity is against me.  So I think I am going to have to stitch in a rod or batten at the bottom to correct the bulge.

Currently I am sewing binding onto the ugly poison green checkered Dresden quilt. The final quilt will be the pink doiley quilt.  I remembered, after trimming it last weekend during the virtual retreat, that I had planned to add interest to the plain sides by scalloping them.  But I had only cut straight of grain binding strips when preparing the quilt, and I didn't have any more of the pink background fabric (the usual recommendation is to use bias binding for binding curves as it lies flatter).  I experimented with a sample, and found that if I kept the scallop pretty shallow, and consciously sewed fullness into the straight grain binding strips, then they could work.  So I cut both sides into scallops and sewed the binding on.  Sadly I forgot the trick where you clip into the corner and pull the edge straight to sew the binding across where two scallops join, so I made a mess of all the corners.  So I had to unpick both sides and do it over again.  It should be ok now.

Once I had all the binding on, I used the last part of the virtual retreat time to make a Japanese-style rice pouch bag - this was a project that came, along with the fabric, when I was a member of the Tilda Club.  It is enhanced with some hand embroidery here and there.  I may give this to my niece when she visits the UK.

I reorganised my Japanese fabric stash, which had become a bit chaotic.  I feel guilty about how much I bought on my last few trips, that I haven't used up much of yet.  I did pull out the remnants of the American Country panels 22 and 23, and made up a final couple of pouches to use them up.  This zip pouch, and an oval basket that I am still working on.

I took my new hobby of junk journalling on the road this weekend, trying out a session at a local church where you can hire a table to yourself to work on.  There were only a couple of other ladies there, doing scrapbook layouts, but they were quite friendly.  I cut out a digital journal kit that I had printed at home, and worked on a few master board collages.  I might do it again, I think the next session is in a few months.

I've started researching a possible trip to China for 2027, but it sounds quite intimidating.  Language and cultural hurdles aside, apparently it is a very difficult country for gluten allergies. I read that they don't even have a word for gluten in mandarin, and that it is very difficult to explain your needs because allergy awareness is low.  Lots of stories online of coeliac tourists really struggling to find things to eat, in a country where soy sauce (which contains gluten) is used in so many sauces and marinades, and so many things are deep fried in wheat batter, and even in supermarkets the food labelling for ingredients is apparently not great.  Coupling that with my inability to tolerate temperature extremes, which means I can really only visit in April or October, and the potential for altitude sickness in some locations. But it does sound like an amazing place to visit, so many stunning natural wonders and ancient historical sites.  It's also quite an affordable country to travel in.  So we'll see.  I'm building up a list of possible destinations for a first-time visit and how long people recommend to see each one.  There are of course organised tours but their itineraries are so whirlwind that it could be quite frustrating.