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.