Thursday, January 15, 2009

My play day with my friend Andee


I had talked Andee into taking this online class a few months ago and we were both disappointed both in the teacher and the project (a purse) and neither of us got any further than making the collaged fabric that the purse was supposed to be made of. I cut mine up to make flowers with the ladies at the Mather, but she still had hers - kept calling it the damn purse.

We'd originally planned to make a Priority Quilt or two from it, but when we got to talking about her Dad (who died with AD), we decided to make her a quilt to keep - she had a happy memory from when he was in hospice care and she brought in a friend who did music therapy with a guitar. When the girl started playing and singing Let Me Call You Sweetheart, he woke up and really enjoyed it. He said "You can call me anything you want, honey". So both the song and the guitar held bittersweet memories and we decided to incorporate them. We cobbled together sheet music and found a guitar outline. I printed the sheet music on organza and fused it to a piece of the damn purse and then she created a guitar from Etal (a metallic finish fabric-paper) and wire and beads and a nickel of all things! She wanted the guitar strings to be all cattywompus because of the damage Alzheimer's does. It turned out really cool.

Then I fused more of the damn purse, some fast2fuse and a backing and she satin stitched the music and guitar to it and finished it with a satin stitch. I think it turned out great!
I think she was happy with it and forgave me for talking her into the class . . .

5 comments:

  1. Great job, Andee! Love the story behind the damned purse & those twisted guitar strings!

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  2. What a great way to make lemons out of lemonade--in more than one way!

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  3. That is awesome Diane! Love what you guys made. What a great keepsake she has now.

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  4. what a beautiful memory and how great to make it into a quilt! Melinda

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  5. this looks great, much better than a damn purse :)

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