Updated List for 2013 Q4 Finish-A-Long at Leanne - she can quilt

At last I've managed to take some photos for my list for the Q4 Finish-A-Long at Leanne's She Can Quilt, between rainy days! As the last months of the year are always so hectic and I know there won't be much time for sewing, I'm concentrating on two quilts. I am planning on finishing some "ancient" unfinished projects:

1. Shantung Shanghai

I was taught this block during one of Roberta Sperandio's fantastic courses, went home and made loads more. They've been sitting in a pile looking at me for ages now. The time has come to put them together. Roberta calls the block Shanghai, like the game with sticks. Shantung comes from the fact that I've used beautiful shantung silk inside many blocks.

Here's some details:

2. Column Quilt

The Column Quilt is another dinosaur, started at a great course by Francesca Miglierina at her shop Tessilesa in Laveno, it's been folded inside a box for ages (hence all the folds you can see in the photo!). If Francesca's reading she'll tell me off next time she sees me for not finishing it. It's a really clever technique for making a quilt, very fast (unless you're like me taking ages to finish it off!). I even started quilting it but unstitched loads of it because I didn't like the decorative stitch I'd chosen.

A detail:

I'm updating my link to the 2013 Q4 Finish-A-Long at Leanne - she can quilt on my previous post.

A reminder: if you would like to vote for my entries in the Blogger's Quilt Festival, you can in the Quilt Photographer category here and in the Art Quilts category here starting from the 1st of November until the 7th of November over at Amy's Creative Side. To vote click on the heart in the corner of the photo when you scroll over my entry. Thank you!

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The quilt was originally made in occasion of an exhibition called  "Afghanistan Inspiration" in 2011, a touring exhibition that stopped on Lake Maggiore too, thanks to Francesca Miglierina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.

Baby Lucy

You have met Ella and here's Lucy! She is a year old now and in this photo she was just two days old! She's sleeping snugly under the baby quilt I managed to make for her just before her birth.

Here we were still in the hospital and you have no idea how much this quilt cheered me up. It was wonderful to wrap her up in it as we moved around the ward. This quilt makes me think about the joy of playing... 

When I'll get round to ironing it I'll show you what the other side looks like because there's a surprise!

The fabric, many will already know, is "Sherbet Pips" by Aneela Hoey for Moda. I fell in love with Aneela Hoey's fabric as soon as I first saw it and in the meantime have also fallen for "A walk in the woods" and "Sew Stitchy"... Now she's out with Posy and I really like "Story" and "Ditsy". I hope one day to buy a "Sew Stitchy" charm pack because I have this idea for making a sewing bag for patchwork blocks.

You must go and see Aneela Hoey's blog comfortstitching, I've been reading it for a while now and, even though I haven't had the pleasure of meeting her, it's as though she's let you become her friend and shown you inside her house.

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!