Quilts 1, 2, 3 precut quilting fabric

My wife Yoshie and I were both born in Japan. When I was 17 I had a chance to spend one whole year in the U.S. as an American Field Service exchange student. I stayed with a family in Lancaster, Pa. and I went to Lampeter Strasburg High School. I was so sad to go back to Japan in 1975. I worked for TOSHIBA for 10 years as a hydro-electric mechanical engineer.

I did not know that Lancaster, Pa is famous for Amish Quilts until I married to my wife who is a skilled quilter. I took her to visit my host family in Lancaster a little after we got married. And Yoshie really liked this peaceful country side of Amish land.

We started our quilt business in Tokyo, Japan in 1985 mainly importing fabrics and notions from the U.S. at that time. In order to better serve our Japanese clients we moved our entire business to U.S. in 1995.

We currently deal with mainly American reproduction fabrics.
We would like to start to deal with the Japanese fabrics and accessories too in the future. Also, since we do some quilt shows, especially the The International Tokyo Dome Quilt Show is our favorite one we are thinking about planning a tour of this show. We will keep you posted.

We thank the Hart family, my host family, for all of the help to get started in U.S. We still do business with Japanese clients but we now want to focus on domestic customers, because Yoshie and I will be an American citizen soon. We decided to spend the rest of our time in America.

Our oldest son has been serving the country with U.S. Navy since 2003. And our younger son is considering U.S.Air force in the near future. Also, our daughter graduated from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and now is an independent jewelry maker trying to make something that quilters would like. She made sterling silver pin cushion ring for the Tokyo Dome Quilt Show in January 2007 which Yoshie wore for the national TV show and she got orders form the customers who saw the TV show.

Takeshi Joe & Yoshie Tazaki