sonia bardella

My patchwork…

As often happens, I first became aware of patchwork by chance.  I went to a shopping center with my daughter, there was an exhibition inside, and I was very impressed.

In May 2002 I took a beginner’s course, and discovered the friendly and social side of patchwork: sewing together, laughing, giving advice, helping each other.  There is a therapeutic side too: there’s no time to get bored when you are calculating patch sizes, ironing, cutting, sewing, looking at new color schemes; all the while forgetting personal problems.

Thanks to patchwork I discovered an unknown world.  During the first four years, I took every possible course available, and learned the potential of each technique to use in expressing myself.

I slowly began to create my own unique way of sewing patchwork; the human figure, not only as a portrait, is important to me.  I use fabric as a medium to remember special moments in my life.  Over the years I perfected a technique of painting on cloth for which the discovery of oil paint sticks was a determining factor.  I don’t like to repeat myself, so each work contains something new.

In a short period of time I won awards at two international competitions, an Honor of Mention at Houston, the Fuijx Award at Tokyo and several other awards.