New Ownerfor "Nelumbo"

Beth just sent me a picture from Houston - the first of my quilts to get sold.

Width: 10.75" Length: 7.5"
Materials/Techniques: The background fabric had too wide a repeat, so I sliced it up and put it back together on a piece of Lutradur. On a whim, I glued the seams with some iridescent glue. The flower was stitched first and then painted with acrylics. I finished with some Pearl Ex for shimmer and a deeper color. The binding is painted background fabric.
Artist Statement: Nelumbo is a genus of aquatic plants with large, showy flowers resembling water lilies, commonly known as lotus. The north American lotus is native to North America and the Caribbean. I had this Asian-feel background, so searched the internet for a flower I could paint on it - and found the lotus.

AAQI in Houston!

We will have a DIZZYING number of quilts for sale in Houston. Join the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative in Row S, (hard right as soon as you enter the exhibit area from the front of the George R Brown) October 31 to November 4th. Watch the video and you'll understand what I mean about dizzy! AAQI quilts headed for Houston!

CELEBRITY INVITATIONAL QUILT AUCTION STARTS NOVEMBER 1ST

The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AlzQuilts.org) offers an online auction during the first 10 days of every month. Each November, in honor of National Alzheimer's Awareness Month, the AAQI offers 12 very special quilts. This year the auction quilts have been made by world renowned quilters Alex Anderson, Hollis Chatelain, Caryl Bryer Fallert, John Flynn, Diane Gaudynski, Becky Goldsmith, Pat Holly, Libby Lehman, Marsha McCloskey, Sue Nickels, Mary Sorensen, and Ricky Tims. The quilts are about 16" x 16" and the auction is open to the public. Last year the 12 quilts offered in the November auction raised more than $14,000 for the AAQI, an all-volunteer effort to raise awareness and fund research through art. Visit http://www.alzquilts.org/ciqa.html to preview the quilts. On November 1st you can bid on the quilts here: http://www.benefitbidding.com/listings/categories/index.cfm?category=965774286 To watch the video: http://youtu.be/V8nCbK7Ej88 (Click the SHARE button and then select embed for the code to put the video on your blog.) The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative® (www.AlzQuilts.org) is a national, grassroots charity whose mission is to raise awareness and fund research. The AAQI auctions and sells donated quilts, and sponsors a nationally touring exhibit of quilts about Alzheimer's. The AAQI has raised more than $773,000 since January 2006. Ami Simms of Flint, Michigan is the founder and executive director of the AAQI, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit operated entirely by volunteers. She is a quilter. Her mother had Alzheimer's.

Do they celebrate birthdays in Heaven?

Yesterday was my Dad's birthday, actually August 11, 1927 was his birthday. He died on December 14, 2010. Last year and again on this year, my siblings and my Mom celebrated our memories and the legacy of values that Dad left us.

His last years were not happy ones - for him or for us. He began to suffer the effects of dementia in the early 2000's and by 2005 was well on the way to being unable to live a normal life. My family has always been tightly knit, but we closed in more in support of Mom and Dad and we managed for a couple of years until in late in 2006 we had to place him in a nursing home. We lucked out in many ways - he ended up in a wonderful place right in Lodi so Mom was 10 minutes away. He had fantastic care but the disease is relentless and took more and more of him every week.

He watched his mother's decline into dementia and it was very hard for him to cope with it happening to him. He fought it for a long time - the fear and frustration must have been horrifying. I did my best to help by learning all I could about dementia and learning how to make things easier for him. It breaks my heart even now to think of how afraid he had to be.

I made this quilt for the first AAQI show: Alzheimer's: Forgetting Piece by Piece. I wanted to depict that battle, from the first realization that it might be happening to him to the point where he couldn't fight any more, when the disease won. I won't say he lost, because it wasn't a fair fight. The quilt is named "The Crooked Path", with my own sub-title "Daddy Let Me Hold Your Hand".

I have pledged to do everything I can to help stop this disease. I am on the Board of Directors of the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative a grassroots all-volunteer organization. I work every day to make it possible for us to raise money to fund Alzheimer's research. I volunteer at a local nursing home in their special care unit, trying to spread moments of joy to others living through the hell of this disease. This year, I am walking the Alzheimer's Association's Walk to End Alzheimer's. My fundraising page is here.

Row 1: Alex Anderson, Hollis Chatelain, Caryl Bryer Fallert, John Flynn.
Row 2: Diane Gaudynski, Becky Goldsmith, Pat Holly, Libby Lehman.
Row 3: Marsha McCloskey, Sue Nickels, Mary Sorensen, and Ricky Tims.

This is the fourth year an elite group of quilters has donated quilts to the AAQI for an online auction in November, National Alzheimer's Awareness Month. Last year's auction raised more than $14,000 for the national charity that sells donated quilts to fund Alzheimer's research. The auction is open to the public.

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How Quickly Time Flies!

I can't believe it's July and the "heat is on". Maybe if I'm trapped in the house because it's too hot out, I'll get more done? Doubtful~ Anyway, I was just watching Tom Russell on The Quilt Show and now have lots MORE ideas floating around in my head that I may never have time to play with, but it was a very interesting show! But then I went into the Free Shows tab and re-watched Ami Simm's show about the AAQI. I was actually in the Boulder, CO studio that day and have since watched the show on TQS, but this time I paid closer attention to the After Show slideshow. I found three shots of quilts I gathered names on and quilted. I quilted the words faith, hope and love. AND (most precious) a picture of me and my Dad which I had forgotten was in that show.

Efflorescence

Sometimes it's really hard to come up with a title for your Priority Quilts that hasn't been used 100 times before. After all, we've received over 9,600 quilts at the AAQIand it's a good thing they're assigned numbers as part of the title or we'd have many, many duplicates. So I've turned to the dictionary. I looked up "flower" and when I saw "efflorescence" in that definition, I looked it up. Efflorescence means: the state or a period of flowering, or an example or result of growth and development. Both chimed with me as the Angelina glows (effervescence) and I made the flower to decorate a Christmas package. After the gift was opened, I rescued the flower and made this quilt with it (recycling is a development, right?). The flower pedals are made with Angelina, as mentioned above and the center is a brad. Background fabric is some sort of upholstery fabric - I liked the texture contrast with the smooth and shiny Angelina. Stem, leaf and grass are made with the backside of a commercial cotton - again I was looking for contrast. I quilted the background in a wispy weedy pattern and added French knots for even more texture. Satin stitch binding.

Inspiration

I pretty much can't draw without something in front of me to copy from. I think I have pretty good design sense, but I always need something to get me started. Dover books are great for that! I use a lot of their coloring books and silhouette books. Dover

There is also a tab on that page called Free Samples where you can sign up for a weekly email that gives you a link to free samples from their books. Royalty free images galore!

It's a Girl Thing

I signed up for a Craftsy.com course called Stupendous Stitching with Carol Ann Waugh and was intrigued by the techniques she taught. I made a small one for the AAQI first. Then I got a call for art for a local Dick Blick Art Store for "love themed" art and this sort of clicked into my head. I've been collecting fibers for years, so had no trouble finding enough to fill a 16x20 piece and I decided to "frame" this one in an inexpensive hardboard frame (using the inside instead of the outside) that I painted black.

I used to be . . .

Blouse Cuffs

Today I realized I'd made a mistake and forgotten to get a number in the 8800's re-assigned (and since Beth is now assigning 9300's that's pretty far behind). Luckily, I had this piece on my design wall all but finished - waiting for the buttons and the backing. So I quick finished it up and got it registered as 8885 and filled a hole in our numerical order neatly. These are actual blouse cuffs that were so pretty, I decided to deconstruct them to see if I could save the lace. Then I won some fabric paper on Fannie Narte's blog and I held it behind the salvaged lace and thought it looked pretty. Lightly batted with felt, I quilted around the circles in the lace and laid a strip of blouse fabric down to cover the center where the two cuffs met. I wanted to keep the lace edges intact, so I backed the whole thing with a piece of fabric covered Timtex. Glad it's off my design wall and will be on it's way to earn money for Alzheimer's research for the AAQI.

Humming Along

I signed up for a Craftsy.com workshop called Stupendous Stitching with Carol Ann Waugh. The class was aimed at making larger collage works, but I wanted to try it out small with a Priority Quilt for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative. I find myself unable to create a collage without a significant focal point, so I built this little piece around a hummingbird.

Nelumbo

Nelumbo is a genus of aquatic plants with large, showy flowers resembling water lilies, commonly known as lotus. The American lotus is found in North America and the Caribbean. I was searching the internet for an Asian flower to paint on some Asian themed background and came up with the lotus. Nelumbo will be donated as a Priority Quilt for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative. The background fabric had too wide a repeat, so I sliced it up and re-assembled pieces on a sheet of Lutradur. Then, on a whim, I glued the pieces together with a luminescent glue that was laying on top of my shelving unit. I stitched the flower first, then painted it and finished it off with some Pearl Ex for some color variation. The binding is painted background fabric.

Sister Gifts

I have two sisters and one sister-in-law who are very dear to me. We exchange gifts every Christmas that we call Sister Gifts - the rules are simple: it has to be hand made. We've shared lovely gifts over the years and every time I start to think we've covered all the bases (there are no more hand made things to give) we all come up with really neat stuff. This year I gave two sister gifts because when Dad died last December I never got mine finished. That particular project remains unfinished. I made two new things.

The birds are a note or picture holder. The bags were silk blanks from Dharma that I painted and then beaded. I'll take pictures of the gifts I received in the next day or so and post them.

Happy New Year!

I must say I got out at the best time of the day. When I walked over to the Mather to put in an hour of volunteering the sun was out, the sky was blue with smallish white fluffy clouds in it. I wanted to somehow gather up all the residents on my floor and take them outside to see it, but of course, that wasn't possible. At any rate, it was a lovely start to my day and now it's blowing bits of sleety snow everywhere. I'm now happily snuggled in. I did add some beads to my Wild Cat piece and I think it really improved it. It was too dark and almost boring, I think - all that olive green and black! I truly believe in serendipity as I had just bought these flat yellow beads for flower centers and they were laying out on my worktable when I was re-thinking Wild Cat. They are the perfect addition!