Quilt Italia magazine feature - Lago Maggiore Quilt

My Lago Maggiore Quilt has been featured in this issue of Quilt Italia's magazine. I was so surprised: I was turning the pages and then suddenly I saw my work! How exciting. Read more about this quilt made for the exhibition Afghanistan Inspiration here.

I had better get busy making new quilts now. I wish somebody would invent a day with flexy hours: the hours for quilting should last much longer!

More news from Quilt Italia Lombardia meeting

Sunday afternoon at Francesca Miglierina's shop Tessilesa in Laveno Mombello the members of Quilt Italia Lombardia met for a chat, a demonstration and coffee with cakes...

Domenica pomeriggio presso il negozio Tessilesa di Francesca Miglierina a Laveno Mombello, le socie di Quilt Italia si sono incontrate per una chiaccherata, una dimostrazione e café con dolci...

We also followed a very interesting demonstration by Francesca during which she showed us how to make a special bag for carrying our work in progress! The shape reminded me a lot of the bags that are used now for putting cakes in when taking them to a friend's house. This bag is full of useful pockets for patchwork tools. The design is by Daniela Zamboni who is a Delegate for Quilt Italia in the Marche.

Abbiamo seguito anche una dimostrazione molto interessante di Francesca che ci ha mostrato come creare una speciale borsa porta-lavori in corso! Mi ricordava molto per la forma le borse che vanno in questo momento per portare in giro dagli amici le torte. Questa borsa è piena di tasche porta attrezzature patchwork. Il disegno è di Daniela Zamboni delegata Quilt Italia nelle Marche.

Heart Comfort Cushion - Cuscino Cuore per aiutare le donne

This afternoon at Francesca Miglierina's shop Tessilesa the members of Quilt Italia Lombardia met for a chat, a demonstration and coffee with cakes, of course!

What I was really impressed by was a Swiss lady's talk about a project she's launched in Switzerland to help women who have been operated for breast cancer. I have looked this up on Internet and found some interesting links:

In Italy by Quilt Italia Lazio:

The idea is to make a heart cushion, which has a precise shape and weight, to donate to women who have just been operated for breast cancer. The particular shape and size of the cushion helps to soothe the pain caused by your arm resting on the area that's been operated on.

The project, which started in the States, was introduced in Europe from Denmark by the Heart Pillow Project:

Our Quilt Italia group is contacting local hospitals to see if we can help too... Let's hope this idea keeps on spreading.

Afghanistan Inspiration (part II)

As I promised in my last post about the exhibition "Afghanistan Inspiration", here are some photos of the event and the fantastic quilts on show. The main exhibition was at the Museo Internazionale Design Ceramico in Cerro di Laveno Mombello. Each quilt made by a European quilter englobes an 8 x 8 cm square embroidered by women in Laghmani, north of Kabul. The squares enable these women to improve the financial situation of their families. The exhibition shows the incredibile quality and versatility of these embroidered squares, promoting the self-help project of the DAI (Deutsch-Afghanische Initiative, German Afghan Initiative).

And here is a detail:

In the Laveno Mombello Library there was another exhibition organised by Daniela Cassani (then Delegate for Quilt Italia in Lombardia) and here are some details of quilts on show:

 

Details from Daniela Cassani's own beautiful quilt:

To finish off, here are some photos from our Raku Laboratory held by Atelier Capricorno, during which we produced Raku pieces for our Water and Lake Project quilts (Progetto Acqua e Lago) and also some very nice brooches for ourselves!

  

Lago Maggiore Quilt - Afghanistan Inspiration

In my 13.08.2012 post I said that I would show what I've been up to in the year I stopped writing this blog. Recently my Lago Maggiore Quilt has come into my hands again and now I'll explain to you why. Here are some photos of my quilt:

The quilt was originally made in occasion of an exhibition called  "Afghanistan Inspiration" in 2011, a touring exhibition that stopped on Lake Maggiore too, thanks to Francesca Miglierina from Tessilesa's hard work. She in fact not only organised everything to make it possible for "Afghanistan Inspiration" to be exhibited in the Museo Internazionale Design Ceramico in Cerro di Laveno Mombello, she also had quilts on show in all the town's shop windows and asked her students to make quilts dedicated to the theme of water and the lake (Progetto Acqua e Lago). The quilts had to be 150 cm long, 15 cm wide.

My Lago Maggiore quilt uses different techniques such as "Shanghai" for the beach part with covered buttons applied as stones and Raku stones too. The central part of the quilt uses a cut-out technique to represent the waves on the Lake. In the top part of the quilt the mountains are made using the "tagliatelle" technique and the sun is a crazy log cabin that expands into the sky. Using a lot of Shantung fabric reproduces the effect of the sun's light reflected on Lake Maggiore's landscape.

The "Shanghai", "Tagliatelle" and cut-out techniques were all learnt during Roberta Sperandio's fantastic courses. The crazy log cabin I learnt from Aneela Hoey's "Crazy Scrappy quilt a long" (see the button on the right!). The Raku buttons were made (one was made by Rossella!) during  a laboratory organised the day of the opening of the exhibition at the Museo Internazione Design Ceramico by the energetic Atelier Capricorno. It was a great experience making pieces to add to our quilts using this ancient technique.

Thanks to Sabrina Colonna, Delegate for Quilt Italia in Lombardia, some of the quilts from the project Water and Lake were on show at Quilt Italia's stand at Bergamo Creattiva from the 15th to the 17th of February. There's some photos of the stand on Sabrina's interesting blog, well worth reading! 

I will post some photos of the "Afghanistan Inspiration" exhibition soon with works from all over Europe. Visit oneearthtextiles for more information.

Creattiva Bergamo, Quilt Italia: Kazuyo Horiuchi and Marta Olivieri

I've done all my chores and I think I deserve to relax a minute writing on my blog. Creattiva Bergamo is coming up soon: from the 15th to the 17th of Febuary. This time I won't be going though because, to be honest, I'm totally skint! I'm sorry not to go because this Craft Fair is really good! It's my favourite one up to now. There is so much to see, I've been twice but neither times did I manage to go round the whole fair! I probably stop at too many stands!!!

Last time I went to Creattiva Bergamo was in October 2012 and I absolutely have to show you this quilt that won first prize (in the traditional category) of the International competition organized by QuiltItalia with the Fiera di Bergamo: Kazuyo Horiuchi and her Tabidachi (The departure):

and here's a detail, absolutely beautiful (and so precise!!!) 

And here is another quilt that caught my eye (I couldn't photograph all of them, could I?!). It's called La forza del desiderio (the power of a wish ... oh dear it doesn't sound quite right translated like that) by Marta Olivieri:

Quilt Italia is going to have another exhibition this year too at Creattiva Bergamo and the stands are not just Italian ones, there is so much variety, so you really shouldn't miss it if you're anywhere near!

Quilt Italia e Tessilesa

A proposito dei miei lavori, stavo sfogliando il bellissimo giornale di Quilt Italia (numero 4 - inverno 2012) quando il mio occhio cade su una foto e mi dico: queste sono cose che ho fatto io! 

Sul tavolo della mostra show and tell del corso di Roberta Sperandio (quanto mi è mancato il tuo corso autunnale!) c'erano dei miei lavori da completare e, in fondo al tavolo, uno finito. Il fiore non vedo l'ora di inserirlo insieme ad altri fiori in un runner. Chissà quando avrò il tempo d farlo! La foto in realtà è nella pubblicità per il negozio Tessilesa di Laveno Mombello di Francesca Miglierina. Francesca è una miniera di idee ed iniziative. Sta diffondendo l'amore per il patchwork!

A proposito di Roberta Sperandio andate a vedere l'incredibile risultato dell'iniziativa Mille Colori Emilia. Quiltiste siete grandi e Roberta ci mette un'energia che nessuno riesce a resistere. Complimenti a tutti!