My Favorite AAQI Quilt Is Now Up At Auction!

Quilt #9648 - Changing the World

As I was making this small (9" x 12") format art quilt for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) I knew it was my "sudden, and for sure" favorite new quilt.

Now I love ALL of the quilts that I make and donate, and each and every single one I love enough to want to keep, trust me. And I've said that and felt that before, and no doubt I'll do it again. But I just really love this one!

Perhaps it was the beautiful fabric that I started out with...it's hard to beat a really good hand dyed batik, then it might have been all of the added surface design like the metallic paintsticks , crayons, thread painting here and there and the other elements like the beads that were individually painted in Africa, or perhaps it was really just the Margaret Mead quotation:

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

That's the basic message of AAQI and all that Ami Simms started and all that she and so many other volunteers help her do, today. It is why we all quilt, and why we all donate money, and why we all, if we can, purchase the quilts and hang them proudly on our walls in our studios, family rooms, and even under kitchen cupboards for instant wall art, anywhere and everywhere.

Those of us who have a personal connection through our own care giving experiences with family members who have faced this dreaded disease, we care and we care deeply. This is deeply personal for me. And it's important that a lot of my own heartfelt energies go into each and every art quilt I make. I want them to be stared into, and experienced and the energies to connect with my heart and all that I am feeling ..not about Alzheimer's..about life and the purpose of our lives for creating a better world for all of us.

Notice the AAQI scanned quilt image on the left, and what it looked like in my own photo on the right! Scanning just didn't do it justice, I'm afraid so I had to point this out ;)


Quilt #9648 - Changing the World
Michele Bilyeu
Salem OR/Douglas AK

Our AAQI quilts are scanned for efficiency, not photographed. But if you use big beads, apparently, it presses too hard on that part of the quilt and makes it all seem blurry there. Plus, it's dark inside a scanner..you don't get any chance to catch the light as photographers do, so the highlights from the beads, all of the Shiva paintsticks, and other pencils, pens and crayons, and other elements that I added aren't very apparent when they are scanned.

Art needs light..both from inside and out... and photographers work to catch that light when they are taking photographs. In real life, it is quite striking. There is both dark and light...just like in all of our lives. but they flow and they blend and they merge...just like my own life does. The challenges with the joys, the dark and the beautiful, the magical and the mystical. And that is how I felt as I made this art quilt. We create the beauty, we create the change, and bit by bit..one by one, we seek to transform our own view of the world and our role in it.

See my quilt and it's design information here at the auction site.

The auction begins today, June 1 and runs through June 10th.

The final bidding gets very intense and is a real hoot to watch as the quilt bids change on all of the quilts. Usually the winner, is either using popcorn bidding(see below) or an automated program with a set limit on what they're willing to spend. I love how it all works! Such fun to be a part of!

Oh, I still love this little quilt! If you saw it, you would too, so do think about bidding to win on this one!!!


Thank you to Ami Simms, Beth Hartford, Diane Petersmarck, and all of the volunteers that keep this running!

Michele Bilyeu blogs With Heart and Hands as she shares a quilting journey through her life in Salem, Oregon and Douglas, Alaska. Sharing thousands of links to Free Quilt and Quilt Block Patterns and encouraging others to join in the Liberated Quilting Challenge and make or donate small art quilts to the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Help us change the world, one little quilt at a time!

Memorial Day: In History, Memory, Quilting, and Deed

Memorial Day in the U.S. is a federal holiday, formerly known as "Decoration Day" a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation's service. We set out flags and flowers, we visit cemeteries, and we remember all of those who served our country.

The first memorial day was observed in 1865 by liberated slaves at a race track in Charleston, South Carolina. The site was a former Confederate prison camp as well as a mass grave for Union soldiers who had died while captive. A parade with thousands of freed blacks and Union soldiers was followed by patriotic singing and a picnic.

The origins of Memorial Day most likely lie with General John A Logan, a northerner of the Union Army, who was so impressed by the way that the South honored their fallen soldiers that he decided the northern states needed a similar day. Reportedly, Logan said that it was most fitting, since the Greeks, had honored their heroes with laurel and flowers, that the grave of every soldier in this land be decorated on a special day and, if he could, he would have made it a holiday.On May 5, 1868 in his capacity as commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, a veterans' organization, Logan issued a proclamation that "Decoration Day" be observed nationwide. It was observed for the first time on May 30 of the same year.

Due to lingering hostility after the Civil War, many southern states did not recognize Memorial Day until after World War I although the name Memorial Day" was first used in 1882.Given its origins in the American Civil War, Memorial Day is not a holiday outside the United States. Countries of the Commonwealth, as well as France and Belgium, honor members of the military who died in war on or around Remembrance Day(November 11.) The United States uses that date as Veterans Day (formerly Armistice Day) and honors all veterans, living and dead.

Memorial Day is currently a national holiday celebrated in almost every State on the last Monday in May. A law passed by Congress with the National Holiday Act, P.L. 90, 363, in 1971 to ensure a three day weekend for Federal holidays. In 1915, inspired by the poem "In Flanders Fields," Moina Michael replied with her own poem:

We cherish too, the Poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led,
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies.

She then conceived of an idea to wear red poppies on Memorial Day in honor of those who died serving the nation during war. She was the first to wear one, and sold poppies to her friends and co-workers with the money going to benefit servicemen in need. Later a Madam Guerin from France was visiting the United States and learned of this new custom started by Moina Michael and when she returned to France, made artificial red poppies to raise money for war orphaned children and widowed women.

This tradition spread to other countries. In 1921, the Franco-American Children's League sold poppies nationally to benefit war orphans of France and Belgium. The League disbanded a year later and Madam Guerin approached the VFW for help. Shortly before Memorial Day in 1922 the VFW became the first veterans' organization to nationally sell poppies. Two years later their "Buddy" Poppy program was selling artificial poppies made by disabled veterans.

In 1948 the US Post Office honored Moina Michael for her role in founding the National Poppy movement by issuing a red 3 cent postage stamp with her likeness on it. Since the late 1950's, on the Thursday before Memorial Day, the 1,200 soldiers of the 3d U.S. Infantry place small American flags at each of the more than 260,000 gravestones at Arlington National Cemetery. They then patrol 24 hours a day during the weekend to ensure that each flag remains standing.



Today, many Americans use Memorial Day weekend to also honor family members who have passed away. Church services on the Sunday prior to Memorial Day may include a reading of the names of members who have died during the previous 12 months.

The southeastern United States continues to celebrate Decoration Day as a day to decorate the graves of all family members, and it is not reserved for those who served in the military and this is usually celebrated the week before the official Memorial Day Weekend.

This year, my husband and his brother continued their yearly tradition of bringing my mother-in-law to visit the cemeteries where her veteran son is laid to rest, having died of cancer 22 years ago at the age of 53, as well as the others she has loved in this lifetime.They visited cemeteries in three cities...Stayton, Albany and a small pioneer cemetery, named after my husband's family, near Scio. All of this, in spite of the fact that my MIL is wheelchair bound and has to bee lifted in and out of the car, since she cannot stand.

We all cut whatever flowers and flowering branches we might have in our yards, each year... for her to place on the graves, a lifelong tradition in our family. While in reality, they are doing the placing and she sits in the car and watches. The cemeteries are hundreds of years old, the ground rocky and uneven and hilly. But they park where she might still watch them and they all remember those they have lost...and those that have served.



My own proud veteran father has been gone for almost two years now, but I think of him and bless him for all that he gave ..to our country, to our family, and to me.



Whether we celebrate Memorial Day, Decoration Day on the last Monday in May, here in the US, Remembrance , Armistice ,Or Poppy Day on Nov.11 in the Commonwealth or ANZAC Day on April 25 in New Zealand and Australia....or just a day of remembrance on all of our special days, wherever we live......I simply remember the loss of all who have died in service to our country and thank them .....for all of their places in history, and for all of their places in our own lives.

And I almost always take a few hours to work on patriotic quilts, utility bags for use in our veteran's hospital by bedsides or on wheelchairs, , neck rolls for positioning them in their beds, and sometimes a red or gold star flag for families who have served and families who have lost a loved one.



While my free spirited heart strings quilted quilts shown in this post....need no patterns...just one of those purchased fabric panels that come with four medallions and lots of scraps, my Free Patriotic Quilt Patterns sites both on my primary blog, here...and my Free Quilt and Quilt Blocks Blog found by clicking there, have all of the free patterns for making the bags, neckrolls, and banners.



And for string quilting: String Quilting:Tutorial and Free Patterns



And here are the Directions For Making a Blue or Gold Star Service Banner

Happy Memorial Day, and many thanks and blessings to those families who have served our country as patriots.

Please become a follower at my primary blog: With Heart and Hands
as all patterns, posts, and memories, are updated here.

Michele Bilyeu blogs With Heart and Hands as she shares a quilting journey through her life in Salem, Oregon and Douglas, Alaska. Sharing thousands of links to Free Quilt and Quilt Block Patterns and encouraging others to join in the Liberated Quilting Challenge and make or donate small art quilts to the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Help us change the world, one little quilt at a time!

Swept Away

Some weeks are so much busier...lots of house work, lots of yard work, lots of computer work,huge piles of charitable giving projects work...and then of course, there's family and life challenges that we all deal with.

Sometimes, as fate will have it, blogs and blogging will suddenly become even more challenging. I will be deluged with email asking me to do things, make things, donate things, join things, etc. etc. and then I go to various group settings and they ask me to make things, donate things, join things. Oh my goodness! For a lady who almost never sleeps, it can be occasionally over whelming. As someone told me, 'it's because you do so much already, I figure it would be easier for you to do it than me.' Ha! I can only say to that ;)

But then something wonderful happens. Sometimes it's a wonderful surprise, a reminder that there are really good and giving people still left in the world. Those who want to support us, or lift us up as we struggle with our own lifting up of others. And those people and their gifts of generosity from their hearts remind us of the good that still exists in the world.

Today, I want to thank just such a special person. Paula (The Quilter) Denee of Colorado wrote me a while back and told me that she had a piece of Alaskan fabric that somehow came from a store in Juneau (!) and that she had hand quilted the sweet little panel of designer fabric by Lynn Blaikie of the Yukon area of Canada (our Eskimo art has always kind of cross cultured here and there between Canada and Alaska) and Paula thought of me as she was working on it and asked me .....flat out asked me..would I like it when it was finished? She named it 'Windswept' but I was just plain 'Swept Away' by the offer!

Would I like it?
No....
I would LOVE IT!!!



And not only did I love it even more in person, I rearranged my sewing nook to give it a place of honor. And boy...does it ever fit in! Perfectly, as if it belonged there. Because of course, it always did. It just did :)

Paula..I'm now calling her 'Bless her heart, Paula' has, in the past, also sent me a pair of magical socks and a pair of wonderfully warm slippers..both of which she also made.

Paula's, gifts are better than Christmas. They are gifts 'just because' she thought of me. Thank you so very, very much Paula!

I go into my sewing nook every single day, multiple times a day. And each and every time I go in I say "Bless her heart." to Paula."

And I do!


Links:
Lynn Blaike batik fabric panels
Lynn Blaike art prints
Lynn Blaike, use of Batiks and native culture in Canada

My own Links, Photos, and Free Tutorials from my sewing experiences in Alaska:

How To Make A Kuspuk

Links to Making Kuspuks in 2010:
Kuspuks Go to the Capitol
Kuspuk Fridays, KTUU, Anchorage News...our classroom work featured as State Legislators wear their own kuspuks every Friday they are in session!

Links to Making Kuspuks in 2009
Sewing Kuspuks Again!
Kuspuks

Links to Making Kuspuks in 2008:
How to make a kuspuk

Kuspuks Make Front Page News

Juneau Empire Photos: Parka party 01/18/08

video: scroll on left menu choice of 'Creating Kuspuks'

Michele Bilyeu blogs With Heart and Hands as she shares a quilting journey through her life in Salem, Oregon and Douglas, Alaska. Sharing thousands of links to Free Quilt and Quilt Block Patterns and encouraging others to join in the Liberated Quilting Challenge and make or donate small art quilts to the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Help us change the world, one little quilt at a time!

Goodbye, Sweet Sophie!

Oh, it's hard to lose a pet..even when that pet is a chicken!

I loved my sweet Sophie! As the Alpha female, she was usually the first one out of the coop in the morning, and the first one to lead the others back into the coop at night.

We only had Sophie for three years. But she was strong, and independent and attentive, and would follow me around the yard with Penelope and Matilda following her. And so, of course, I loved her...just as I do all of our pets. They are part of our family even if they live in their own little chicken house and not inside with us!

I was so sad when she died and I do miss her. And of course, it's not quite as hard as loosing a pet you are closer to than a chicken..but you wouldn't believe how much fun chickens can actually be and how attached you can get to their silly quirkiness. So, if you've every lost a small pet and felt an attachment to them, you have to know that I'm whispering 'Goodbye, sweet Sophie and thank you for all of the lovely cream colored eggs and your funny ways!"

Sophie would stand up on our back deck apple crates and peer into the living room, she would knock with her beak on the patio door, and she was always the first one to come a runnin' when I cooked spaghetti noodles just for her!

When my husband gave me my prayer flag arbor arch that he'd made me for this last Mother's Day, Sophie was the first of all of the chickens to cross under it. She stopped in her tracks ...right in front of it....for at least ten minutes, just chicken thinking about life, perhaps..or maybe she even had a chicken glimmer of knowing she was ill, and would soon be going over the Rainbow Bridge,!

Now some people think chickens are stupid..and they say that ALL the time. Heck, I've been known to say it when it would start raining, and they all gathered on the deck on the apple crate instead of heading for their dry coop. But then again, I wouldn't go into a dark chicken coop just because it was raining, either. So, maybe they're not stupid..just optimists that the sun will come out tomorrow..and maybe even in just a few more minutes! After all, that's how we make rainbows!

So, sweet Sophie..as you travel Across the Rainbow Bridge just remember we thought you were something special, you were part of our little pet family and we miss you!

Loved you, sweet Sophie..even if you were just a chicken!



For my other dear ones:
Prayer Pocket Pillows and
Praying for a Miracle

Michele Bilyeu blogs With Heart and Hands as she shares a quilting journey through her life in Salem, Oregon and Douglas, Alaska. Sharing thousands of links to Free Quilt and Quilt Block Patterns and encouraging others to join in the Liberated Quilting Challenge and make or donate small art quilts to the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Help us change the world, one little quilt at a time!

Zombie Brains: A Dream Within A Dream

Ami Simms, founder of the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) has added a new feature to the AAQI line-up of Quilts For Sale.

Called Sales on the Road, it is an experimental project in which all of the quilts that you see on this page will be offered for sale at the May 22 meeting of the River Country Quilters Guild.

If this additional sales idea proves successful, AAQI will invite other individuals or groups to take limited numbers of quilts for sale at other specific times and places.

Please do note, that these quilts are not meant to be purchased online as they are being set aside for this special sale. But do take a look at all of them, and if you are a member of the River Country Quilters Guild...... or come in as a new visitor or guest....I truly hope you will consider a purchase of one of these great little quilts....see all of them on this AAQI Sales on the Road page ....but especially of these two quilts from my own Liberated Quilting Challenge!!!

I love BOTH of our quilts and while they are SO very different, they still have SO VERY MUCH IN COMMON! They would be fabulous displayed on your own art quilt wall at home!

So, please consider purchasing BOTH Jude and my quilts :) What an awesome contribution this duo would make towards funding Alzheimer's research! Remember, the profits from the sale of all AAQI quilts go to fund our cause.

Zombie Brains and A Dream With A Dream

When I think about it, isn't that pretty much how we feel on the days when our own minds are frazzled and disconnected? We are in such a crazy place where not only our mental abilities collide.... but so do our abilities to tell what is real, and what isn't. But what about the person with Alzheimer's Disease?

Alzheimer's Disease is very, very real. It's victims live in a shattered world of illusions, and altered realities. Memories become either hazy and dreamlike..often even beautiful or places we have never been, things we never really did... or overly exaggerated and anything but beautiful... with hallucinations and false memories of things that may, or may not, have even happened.

Both of these quilts will be for sale at the May 22 meeting of the River Country Quilters Guild. Please buy both of our quilts and help us make a difference in the reality of the 5.4 million victims of Alzheimer's Disease by continued Alzheimer's research funding!!!



8669 Zombie Brains

Jude Edling
Blue Earth, Minnesota USA

Width: 9" Length: 11"

Materials/Techniques: Batik, novelty fabric, fusible and glow in the dark thread.

Artist Statement: This is the third in my Brain series. It glows in the dark.

9400 A Dream With A Dream

Michele Bilyeu
Salem, OR USA

Width: 8.75" Length: 11.5"

Materials/Techniques: Designer cottons and batiks with applique, ink jet printing, Shiva oil sticks, metallic threads in free motion quilting, and golden beads.

Artist Statement: Edgar Allen Poe once wrote, "All that we see or seem, is but a dream within a dream." I wanted to create a deep, but still magical little quilt that brought the viewer into that dream...but allowed them to still see the golden nuggets of hope within.

Dedication: For my mother, who married my father 62 years ago, to share his life, his dreams, and his search for a golden future together. Alzheimer's might have changed those dreams, but it didn't completely destroy them. She dreams of him, and loves him, still.

Michele Bilyeu Quilts With Heart and Hands for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Join in my Liberated Quilting Challenge...and buy or donate a quilt, today!! We are changing the world...one little quilt at a time.Michele Bilyeu blogs With Heart and Hands as she shares a quilting journey through her life in Salem, Oregon and Douglas, Alaska. Sharing thousands of links to Free Quilt and Quilt Block Patterns and encouraging others to join in the Liberated Quilting Challenge and make or donate small art quilts to the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Help us change the world, one little quilt at a time!