A day with Yoko Saito

My friend Barb and I had the most wonderful day yesterday in our class with Yoko Saito. Yoko is well known for her "exquisite designs and ingenious use of 'taupe colour' " (words borrowed from the blurb inside one of her books).
Because Yoko knows very little English, she was accompanied by another lovely lady, Satomi, who was able to translate for her.

However Yoko's hands told us much that we needed to know, she was very patient and clear in her demonstrations and there were many "Ahhh!" and "Wow" moments throughout the day!
Yoko and Satomi are in New Zealand for eight days I think and are squeezing in 6 workshop days in that time!
The project we were making was a notebook cover; in reality, what we were making was immaterial, what we learnt was invaluable.

Yoko's work is small (tiny at times!) and the way she works is simple, deft and efficient. What she showed us was that if you use the right tools or technique, doing small is achievable. Not that she has a vast repertoire of tools that she required us to buy, mostly it was using items that are already readily found in our craft rooms... although I think many of us will be purchasing the clever cutter she was using...(it's on her thumb in the photos above and below).

The notebook/diary cover we were making

Here is how far I got with my piece, doesn't seem a lot for a full day but there was lots to see and talk about of course!! (And morning, afternoon tea and lunch were all very well catered for!)

And Barb got about as far along it as I did!

Yoko finished the class by showing us two of the quilts which had travelled with her. Amazing!

And she tirelessly and graciously signed our copies of her books we had brought with us :-)

An added bonus of the class was meeting a fellow blogger. Fairly recently I have been delighted to come across another Raewyn in blogland!! Since I've been blogging I have had many comments and questions about my name... which intrigued me as it was a pretty common 60's name in New Zealand (I often seemed to have another Raewyn in my class while at school!)
I was excited to learn that she was doing the same class as us. Raewyn from Reconstructed Fabulousness is as lovely as her blog suggests. And she does the most beautiful handwork, her blog is well worth looking at and drooling over.

The two Raewyn Anne s in Red.

In case you think I may have neglected my animals for the day, this was how my day started (before the 3 hour drive!)

And I didn't get a photo of how it finished...dinner at the neighbours' place - the roast mutton was just being pulled out of the oven as I arrived after the big drive home. Absolutely fabulous!
A truly fantastic day!!