The game based on the theme of dualism is now completed and the works made by participants are stunning!  As usual, we asked some questions to the quilters who completed their work for the dualism challenge. We unexpectedly found some common understanding of what happens during our games, even if each of us is unique and improvisationally interprets the prompt in their own way.   We asked: “The theme dualism has a thousand options, how did you choose the one you made?” @bettyoquilts wrote: “How did I choose? I spent some time thinking about the many options to express the dualism ..read more

Last week we had the opportunity to visit the European Patchwork Meeting (EPM) in France, we want to tell you something about this incredible experience!  Let’s see together the most relevant aspects of this event: OLD AND NEW FRIENDS It was a great occasion to meet Quilt Improv studio’s friends and to know new people from around the world. We could see in person Maria Paz Avalos, a participant of our games from Chile, and to see her quilts made for Chile Quilting exhibit! It was a pleasure to meet her after two years of social media contacts. We rejoiced with Mattea Jurin ..read more

Hi quilters! Our current improv game dedicated to “pop” colors and effects is ongoing, and all of you are welcome to join participants who have already started challenging themselves with such a theme. You can see their progress on Instagram, in the page dedicated to the game, under the hashtag #qispopimprov. While you are thinking what to sew next, we would like to mention quilting events that are coming soon, as a feast for the eyes, and as a possible inspiration source! Next week the doors will open for the wide quilting festival hosted in France, Alsace: the European Patchwork Meeting (EP ..read more

Here we are again!  While waiting for our new challenge, we found that someone of you discovered our first game and decided to try it! What a wonderful idea, our games are on our site and they can always be played!  By the way… this is the moment to present our new game! After many shades of orange and blue, we thought to play with something drastic, with a high graphic visual impact: black and white. We know this is a combination that one may love or hate, but this is what we want to do here: to stop and to think how to go beyond our usual comfort zones, to try something new or to ..read more

 Improv Black and White game started a few weeks ago, and some early-bird finished quilts arrived. We aim not only to showcase the precious quilts completed by participants on @quiltimprovstudio gallery, but also to learn together by sharing comments on the experience done. Moreover, we start to see the habit by some of the participants, of returning to our games, after having tried earlier ones: we’re honored by that! This is an opportunity to know something more about quilters who love doing patchwork in improv mode! Thus, in this article, you will find some background stories from o ..read more

Our fourth challenge, Monochrome Dreams, is finished, and we’ve learnt a lot from this experience. First of all, we’ve been positively surprised by the interest of our participants to play with a purely monochromatic palette, as answered by the majority of respondents to the poll offering the alternative to use a neutral too. If we’ve got to play, let’s play seriously! Second, we’ve observed that the gallery of participants’ works, visible on @quiltimprovstudio Instagram profile, had a contemporary feel. This was unintentional, but it was a nice discovery. This experience highlighted for u ..read more

A fourth improvisation game is coming soon: it was boiling in our minds for months, and now the time has arrived to share our ideas with you! When talking about the elements to include in our new exercise, Carla proposed that, this time, each participant choose their favorite color, and, with that color, a monochromatic quilt be created.  We immediately jumped on this idea, and we started to elaborate it. What does it mean to use a monochromatic palette? Will this be an occasion to play with value? Are we diving into a composition effect that will create… a “color splash”… a focal spot i ..read more

We have now reached the final part of our improv game based on the use of black and white, and we have asked the participants of our game who have recently published their completed work, if they felt that working in black and white has been different from working with other colors, and why. The first reply we received was the one by @emmafassio, who wrote: “I think that composing with black and white is different than doing this with other colors, because their contrast is strong and we often perceive them as opposites, also when linking them to emotions and sensations. Wearing a white dr ..read more

Hello quilters, here we are! Today it’s the same date when we started with our first Quilt Improv Studio game two years ago, and we celebrate it with the launch of a new challenge!  Just a little introduction to let you know how this new game was born. While we were googling images for the recent QIS Primary colors challenge we saw a lot of Pop Art pictures that impressed us. Some days later Paola told us she thought to an hashtag for our new challenge: #qispopimprov. We liked it right away! It sounded a bit weird since this was the first time we decided to build a challenge starting fro ..read more

When we decided to start a game based on primary colors and black and white, we knew only part of the meanings associated with such hues.  We could not imagine how many meanings were possible and, thanks to game participants and quilting contacts, we learnt much more on the way. We had the pleasure of receiving comments from many quilters and also fiber artist @shinheechin wrote us, revealing a fascinating story from her culture background:  “Black and white, yellow, red and blue are famous for Mondrian’s palette, but also those five colors were called ‘obansaek’: Korean tradition ..read more