improv process

Design with a friend – part 2

collaborations, improv process, techniques

A few months ago, I started a series of photos with scraps and seeds, simply as an occasion to feel better in short time, thanks to the beauty of nature and fabric colors in my hands, and the ease of photography.
Later it became something more.
It clearly resulted as a way to exercise on composition.

Seeds on a table are like scraps on a design wall.

The feeling of improv quilting, appearing when you try casually the positioning of fabric scraps, came to me in the same way, when I tried different versions of compositions with seeds on the photo set.
Adjusting different quilt compositions may be slow and time consuming. I have a limited design wall space: to give room to new work in progress, I needed to add a new layer of batting on top of the previous quilting work!

On the contrary, photo composition are quicker to be made. By the way, if you use fresh vegetables, you must be quick. Sometimes I have only a few days available to manipulate seed buds, because they transform quickly. I picked the ones in the picture here below from a public garden bush, named pittosporum tobira. One day, these green buds opened and revealed the red seeds inside: It was a surprise! I took a picture of them, together with the red fabric I was using for my quilt in progress. The paper fragments in this composition are from Ally @allyryde.

An additional meaning of making photo compositions came when I realized that I could use them as an occasion of connecting with quilting friends, to continue the idea started embedding the paper pieces received by Ally, together with more quilting friends.

In these days I discussed with Linda @flourishingpalms  and Lenny @modernstitchwitch about the tools we use to keep connected with each other.  Most of the times we chat on the socials, and very rarely we can meet face to face, thanks to a flight overseas. Since the social platforms can be changed unilaterally, we shall not be fully dependent on them: it’s better to put alternatives in place. In that sense, I’m trying to use multiple channels as networking tools, to ensure I can keep connected with people, whatever happens with one of those channels: so I try to use also e-mail and on-line meetings.

For the playtime “design with a friend” I invite you to send me a small white envelope with your quilting scraps; then, I will try to make new photo compositions with them, to send you back a small photo print. Let’s make best use also of post offices!

Design with a friend – part 1

collaborations, improv process

This week I had the opportunity to talk to the group Beyond Borders, part of the Modern Quilt Guild, about the way I make my quilts and I design with scraps.

I’m a scrap saver, I allow scraps guide my improv and I use scraps as one of the elements of quilt composition. How did this quilt,  River gone green, come about?

This quilt was made with remainders of earlier work.
The green fields were non-used remainders from this work below: “Open air” (at the moment part of the SAQA global exhibition Abstraction: textural elements). A hint of the green area, inside “Open air”, remained: down at right.
Scraps can be used to trace lines on the design wall: you can see here, how I used scraps while composing “Open Air”.

In this period, when I didn’t have time for sewing, I thought that I can still use scraps… for photos! Like I did 20 years ago in my first photo gallery: Flowers, fruits and embroidery.

Recently I started to make photo composition with scraps received from a friend. In the picture below you can see how I used paper and fabric scraps. The piece of paper was from Ally Ryde, design teacher. Thank you, Ally, for giving me these small pieces, that became the start of something new!

I would like to continue in this way: to keep connected with quilting friends, receiving scraps (fabric, paper, small reminders from work in progress) and using them to exercise in making compositions. The name for this photo series will be: “design with a friend”. After having received a postal letter with tiny pieces, I can send back a postcard with the photo I’ve made.
Would you like to join?

Participation to Camouflage quilt show

Exhibits, improv process

“Spot the dot”, my last quilt finish, has been selected to be part of “Camouflage”. Juried by Lorraine Roy, it’s an exhibition celebrating the wonder of wildlife and the artistry of concealment, inspired by a theme submitted by SAQA Member Leilani Purvis.

 “Spot the dot” will be on display, at the International Quilt Festival, Houston Texas, since October 31, 2024. Additional venues are Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, Tucson, Arizona (July 19th – September 28, 2025); Detroit Zoo, Royal Oak, Michigan (November 2025 – February 2026); exhibition will travel through December 2027.

I now have five works travelling with SAQA shows. Thanks to SAQA international nonprofit organisation, whose mission is to promote art quilts, for the organisation of many initiatives and opportunities.

This is the story of “Spot the dot”.

How would you behave, if you had a mixed identity, such as the one of a black and white dot (pardon, a black and white button) appearing in this quilt?

Would you act like the black dots, who are wandering around, exploring opportunities, searching for a gate to break free? Or you’d rather look for safety, hiding within the crowd, pressed inside a box, among the other buttons that look quite similar you?

Ok, let’s take another point of view. Let’s join the observer, who can easily spot the dot. Human brain is wired to connect the dots and to go straight to the point. So… what’s the point of treasure hunt? To find ‘em all! Until the last point.

Play the game and search for a “point”!

QuiltCon and the effects of visual perception

Exhibits, improv process

My preparation for the visit in the US to QuiltCon 2024 started four months in advance. In these days, Fabia Delise mentioned the retrospective exhibition dedicated to the abstract expressionist Mark Rothko hosted by the Fondation Louis Vuitton. Perfect timing! I decided that my connecting flight had to pass through Paris, and I booked the tickets for that gallery.

It was a very strong experience. The large paintings by Rothko game me the idea of wide horizons, of the blocking of walls, of the wish to dive in, of the feeling to fly above… The luminosity of space was recognized very well by my visual perception system. This show made me wish to spend more time outdoor or, as paper engineer Annalisa Metus recently said, of being en plein air.

I spent the rest of my day in Paris walking in the zone of La Défense in Paris, where I found the monument “Iris” by Raymond Moretti, among skyscrapers illuminated in the night.

When I arrived to my destination, at QuiltCon, one of the first quiltmakers that I met was Scott Culley. His quilt Shadow won first prize in the Piecing category: congratulations Scott! Only at a certain distance, the composition of a face can be recognized. He made other works based on visual perception effects, such as the earlier quilt Mask-3.

A few days before going to QuiltCon, I read the impressive story of the work Reconceived by Jennifer Candon, and how she is aware of visual perception factors, while choosing colorful zones and areas for the eyes to rest, in her quilts. I commented her: “I bet on an award”. Indeed her work won the first prize in the Improv category.

Here you can see how big is the work of Jennifer, at right; in the center, still in the Improv category, was hanging my quilt “Night Lights” juried in the show.

Night Lights is intended as an abstract work, even if it is based on a real experience feeling. I use to walk by the sea in whatever hour of the day. Late afternoon hour in Winter is enough to find an extreme condition: a black sky above a black horizon of water. The tip of the pier is one of my favorite places, where only natural illumination remains, the last streetlamp and its wavy reflections left behind.

I was happy to find in the show the work Iridescence by Julie Reuben , which has been juried also in the Abstraction: Textural Elements (SAQA Global Exhibition) together with my quilt Open air. Her handwork quilting creates color play in a very interesting zone: the limit of visibility.

The quilt with a secret code

improv process

The third and last episode of the series “The secret lives of quilts” of this Summer is out on Patchworkvictim blog, on its YouTube channel, and here above! This episode tells the story of the quilt “Open air”.

I made “Open air” at the end of the pandemic period. It was started in one of the workshops with Irene Roderick, which I had the opportunity to attend in the on-line mode. This quilt expresses the feelings you can have when you get out of your home, after a long time spent in the inside. In that moment, the air outside feels so fresh, the light so bright, that it almost surprises your eyes for the sudden change of luminosity. I tried to express this in my work, thanks to the large amount of white fabric used, and I always feel good still now when I look at “Open air”.

For this quilt I also used printed fabric with text. This is a way of working that I adopted after having met the quilter Linda McLaren: it was Linda who proposed me to try fabric with text in a previous work and I continued also in this case. I placed words spread around in the texture. Sometimes these words compose a sort of a message; in some other positions they are put casually. So, we may say that this work is a quilt with a “secret code”.

Textures connect with Nature

collaborations, improv process, joining events

During March 2023 I had the opportunity to present my talk “From the microscope to the sky” to SAQA Texas, in a zoom gathering moderated by Susie Monday, Texas Regional Representative of Studio Art Quilt Associates. Susie, together with me, will be part of the Color in context: Red SAQA global exhibition. 

I explained how I am inspired by textures that I find in nature and during my professional experience.

I have used photography for twenty years, and among my past photo galleries there was one fully dedicated to textures visible in the reflections on the surface of water.

I started to use microscopy during my thesis work at the University, and the pictures I gathered in that period became part of a science communication project which travelled around Italy for some years.

I am still using microscopy and other imaging techniques, such as optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, x-ray tomography and ultrasonic testing: I have a professional relationship with images and I continuously work extracting technical meaning from raw abstract pictures.

When I put my recent texture quilts aside to the images obtained at the microscope, sometimes I find they have similarities. I don’t use photos as a direct source to make a quilt as a replica of the subject, but the library of pictures filling my memory surely influence my quilting practice.

Ally Ryde described my works as “quilts of places”. My last quilts are a collection of landscape textures, such as: Grasshopper path, Sealights, The space between the clouds and River gone green.

After many quilts dedicated to exploring this subject, I have the feeling that textures spontaneously speak of Nature. Since ancient times, our brain needed to recognize the variation of a popping fruit among the dense foliage; to spot the movement of creatures approaching through the thickness of the grass.

We are specialized in looking at textures.
And this experience is a continuous pleasure.

The meaning of a map

improv process

Last Spring I joined a virtual workshop led by David Owen Hastings, named: Inspired by art. As inspiration source, I chose the super detailed maps by graphic designer Thomas Ashley. The workshop was interesting and comprehensive, and it activated visions since its beginning: it started with a wonderful imagery that David shared from his countryside!

As a workshop exercise, I drafted a fuzzy section of a map on my design wall.
I recalled the awesome works of gorgeous map quilters such as Alicia Merret, Leah Evans and Niraja Lorenz and, with some doubts, I asked myself: why making one more map?
In a conversation after the workshop, David encouraged me: he was very kind, and the map idea found quiet settlement in some place of my mind.

During this Summer, the occasion to elaborate this subject topic came again, thanks to the game launched by Quilt Improv Studio, Pop improv challenge: I randomly started piecing some acid green fields. And suddenly, from my design wall, a message appeared so strong that I didn’t dare to touch the pins and to adjust the vision. I found reply to my earlier question: “It depends on what you want to say with your map”.

This is the story of my quilt made for the Pop Improv game. Its title is: “River gone green”.

This Summer our family holidays found destination in Spain, to the ancient city of Valencia.
Valencia was founded as a Roman colony in 138 BC. Building site were the banks of the River Turia, alluvial silts accumulated on the floodplain formed in the lower course of the river, which were highly fertile.
Valencia today is one of the world’s top rank global cities: a primary node in the global economic network. But centuries of development changed its relationship with Nature very deeply. Strong growth at the sides of its riverbanks found its limit on 14 October 1957, when the Great Flood of Valencia flooded large parts of the city of Valencia. As a reaction, Turia river was diverted and its coexistence with the citizens found an end. The old course of the river has been turned into a central green space for the city: a cultural attraction known as the Garden of the Turia, which I myself walked in, smitten by surprise.

Acid and saturated colors typical of Pop Art aesthetics, as requested by Quilt Improv Studio challenge, proved perfect to convey through my quilt the message of what happens when commodification of Nature hits an extreme, such as in the story of Turia river bed, not anymore filled with water, but now gone green. Like a glowing ghost of its former stream shape.

Today, awareness that rivers are continuously changing landscapes, which can’t be frozen into a fixed narrow stream (as it happened to the vast majority of the rivers in the world), is well consolidated in the scientific community: leaving room for rivers to flow and flood is safer than building houses too close to riverbanks. The few remaining examples of rivers having a course that still preserves its natural features, such as my beloved Tagliamento river (the “king of the Alps” worth of getting Unesco tutelage), are studied and imitated during projects for restoring damaged river’s health. Didn’t you expect that honoring the wilderness of rivers would also make safer the communities around them?

Finding inspiration at the European Patchwork Meeting

Exhibits, improv process

This month I visited for the first time the European Patchwork Meeting (EPM). The opportunity to be there was offered by having one of my quilts, “East”, part of the SAQA  Exhibit Wide Horizons: I spent one afternoon together with Giovanna, in the role of hosts for the visitors coming to the SAQA gallery: what an honor!

Paola and Giovanna at SAQA stand
SAQA pins at EPM gallery

I spent the first two days with quilting friends from Quilt Improv Studio: you can find this part of the story in the article published on Quilt Improv Studio blog.

I took a third day by myself, and I continued the tour in the other villages of France where more exhibits were displayed. There, I found inspiration in the works by Priscilla Bianchi and her sense of composition with bold colors.

I could appreciate the real appearance of quilts by Alicia Merret and Betty Busby, which I always admired for the capability to create textures.

“Fishing for colour” by Alicia Merret in EPM
“Fly away home” by Betty Busby in EPM

I discovered the skills in creating subtle variations by Misik Kim: I really spent long time observing all the details of her work “The connection”.

“The connection” by Misik Kim
“The connection” detail by Misik Kim
label “The connection” by Misik Kim at EPM

I could learn not only from improv and abstract quilts, but also from figurative and representational art. I could not resist to check close up view of the multiple fabrics used by Denise Labadie: she brought me back in time, to the year of my visit to Ireland with school mate friend Ambra!

Finally, the possibility to talk with Scott Culley made my day. You would be astonished by the accuracy he puts in his quilts! And with a strong message! Seeing in person his work was really a good example to keep in mind. I can go down the rabbit hole as much as I wish, with my piecing work: I am not alone in loving so much the quilting practice.

Goldfinger quilt spy story

collaborations, Exhibits, improv process

The second episode of the series “The secret lives of quilts” is out on Patchworkvictim blog and its YouTube channel and here above! Like a spy story, we may call it mission Goldfinger. Do you remember the scene when James Bond emerges from the sea, unzips his submarine gears and appears perfectly suited in his smocking, equipped with a fresh flower ready for its place in the white jacket? The same happens to travelling quilts, hidden in small packages, ready to surprisingly pop out from their mystery box, to reach their destination in fully elegant settings.

This episode indeed features works by Quilt Improv Studio participants, such as the wonderful mini quilt “Delirium” made by Carla Beretta shown in the pictures below, which I had the opportunity to see in person after its travel to the venue for the gallery “The tales of the needle and the brush“: it perfectly unfolded from its tiny shipment pack, without showing any crease thanks to its incredible thick free motion quilting fill. Carla is a founder of Quilt Improv Studio together with Giovanna Nicolai and myself, and even if we collaborate by remote, I still remember the wonderful sensation of keeping first time among my fingers her masterful creation in the shades of gold.

One of the secret powers of quilts is the capability to connect people from all around the world. Since two years ago, Quilt Improv Studio launches its games online: the Instagram gallery of works made by game participants nowadays displays more than 160 quilts, showing how varied can be the ideas emerging from improv process adopted by quilters who were inspired by the same game prompt.
Quilts made for the game include excellent examples such as the works selected for QuiltCon2022 and aired last February in Phoenix, Arizona, by @aquilterstable, @quiltcreation and @kathycookquilts; @sakuraquilting was awarded at Gramado Brasil quilt festival with her quilt “Emergiendo” created during Orange Summer challenge and @hollygrovethreads was awarded at Greenville quilt festival with her work “Mod Mondrian” created for Primary Improv challenge. If you want to join such adventures, you are still in time to participate to the latest game Pop Improv challenge!

To conclude with funny anecdotes, I add a bonus track here below: my favorite parodie of James Bond reiterating his name, by the great couple of Italian comic actors Lillo and Greg!

Quiltmaking is my jogging

improv process

I share my quilting studio with DaveTheWave, who collects there his tools for electronic music improvisation, and sometimes I enjoy piecing during his composition hours.
His tunes are a perfect companion for sewing with a rhythm: not only I respond better to the emerging shapes on my design wall, but also I feel confident in changing my texture while keeping unity in the overall piece.

Music improvisation and quilting improvisation are similar: when you find a good balance between control and intuitive response, you are in the flow, you are connected with the medium, the eye switches easily from zoom detail to overview check, and repetitions with variation can proceed.
Where can I learn from, if I want to practice the feeling of improvisation? Keeping a good link between body and mind reminds me of training in sports: you have learnt the basics and, during the match, you seamlessly adjust your strategy according the movements of the team.