Month: November 2020

Quilting marathon colored as a blue sky

activism, collaborations, improv process

I’m happy to announce the start of a social sewing initiative, launched by local quilt shop Patchworkvictim, dedicated to the women and aimed to create a king size charity quilt.

We’ve been talking in the background of this project for several months, and now it’s ready to start. Quite on purpose, the initiative connects two dates, as the start and the finish of a quilting marathon, that are: November 25th 2020, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and March 8th 2021, International Women’s Day. Since my experience of some years ago, when I worked in my city council as a member of gender diversity and equal opportunities committee, I care that not just a single day is used as a celebration for such important themes, but a continuous practice is adopted, together, collaboratively. The charity recipient of this initiative will be a very effective working group: the local centre for protection of women from violence, G.O.A.P., a team well equipped to act both on the cultural change and on the practical needs.

So, here we are! The initiative calls for quilters that contribute by sewing one (or more) squares having 10 inch size each, up to a total of 132 squares. All those pieces shall be made using the technique I love most: improv piecing! I’m so happy to contribute to this project with local discussions on improv, and in the final sewing phase of more than one hundred pieces into a unique quilt top!

Improv can be defined in several ways, but in this occasion its main feature will be: composition! Indeed, participants are invited to experiment with minimalist composition improvisationally done, within own 10” square block. Isn’t it a nice challenge? To try graphic effects with the smallest possible number of elements? Minimalist composition can be both difficult and very simple: how to find elegance with tiny piecing and a wide negative space? There is a lot of room of expression with abstract mark making!

The rules to keep a uniform approach within the overall quilt are simple: use solid background, and choose light blue and white colours. Our quilting marathon looks forward to an arrival into the fresh air of new year Spring, and our community quilt can talk the language of clear white clouds running in a light blue sky!

If you wish to participate, all that is needed is to book your participation writing to info@patchworkvictim.it ; on Patchworkvictim blog all the details of the initiative are presented, including address for block shipment, key dates and initiative contributors.
I’ve already started to make a few improv blocks… come and sew with me!

Grass and wheat

improv process

I’ve completed my second quilt realized with the technique named “Wall Dance”, which I learnt studying with Irene Roderick.

I’ve tried to mix the lessons learnt about composition (to be tested by free remix on the design wall), with my habit of growing textures in a continuum, without interruptions.  

I’ve started this work in Summer, before the “Tagliamento king of rivers” exhibit arrangement, and at that time I was thinking: “Why not to include this work in the gallery?”. Too optimistic: I completed this quilt two months after the end of exhibition.

In September I restarted my collaboration with the local quilt shop. During the lecture I gave with them, on finding beauty in abstraction while doing improv (and managing chaos!), I was sewing yellow and green pieces “live”: the fabric which took part of this discussion, later entered into the quilt.

I chose the title: “Grasshopper path”. I imagine being small and jumping across wheat fields, leaving trace of route taken, as indicated by the arrows.

Yesterday I placed the finished quilt on the wall of my living room. My child observed the result, and proposed the following way to compose a quilt: “Take your small pieces of fabric, let them fall on the ground, and sew them in the position they have taken on the floor!”