Yes, Those are Catfood Pull Tabs

Have you ever noticed, that just when you are your very busiest, when so many things are going through your head of things you need to do, have to do, ought to be doing, that's just when you want to say the heck with it all and just play?

Getting ready to go to the first Passive House on the Pacific West Coast's open house (which our business is so proud of have built) with yard and garden and cats and chickens and paperwork and laptop to desktop copying to do, I played in my scrapbags in my 90+º sewing nook, instead.

Oh, I do have such fun! And yes, I did tell them that they came from my own personal sweatshop. Boy, was it hot up there, and boy did I sweat making them... as much fun as they were!

Three colorful free-pieced potholders completely made from scraps that other quilters threw in trash cans, or put on the free table at quilt guild.

And to top them off, I used canned cat food pull tabs for hanging rings. Cleaned up, sewn on with crochet thread in a tight buttonhole stitch.

My kind of gift giving....homemade with recycled bale goods and metal!

other links:
Make a Scrappy Potholder
Bale-ing
Living Green

Wrap It Up: Living on the Edge of Many Lives

As I continually transition between Alaska and Oregon, Oregon and Alaska, I can't help but reflect on the very act and meaning of change and transformation.

Living on the edge has become almost a way of life for me. Constantly juggling time and space, activity and rest, giving and receiving back again, has taught me so very much about why I make the choices that I make, and made me realize how important the small things we take for granted, truly are.

I don't think it's an accident, that selvages and the use of them, has catapulted to the forefront of both small and large sewing and quilting projects over the past few years. To me, it just is symbolic of how each of us is trying to learn to use, reuse, make do, and appreciate all of the tiny cast off parts of our lives and bring them back into the fold of appreciation once again.

So, with that in mind, I don my simple little selvage wristlet, suddenly back in my Oregon home again, and dream about getting back into my quilting life once again.

I was called down to Juneau from the family wedding in Anchorage, because my mother's doctor was afraid she was getting ready to throw one, if not more, blood clots. My dad is suffering from congestive heart failure and both are aging and in between their own worlds right now.

In spite of her Alzheimer's my mother continues to know me and accept my sudden and often unexpected presence. She greets me by name and tells me she's happy I'm there. That she can go from an almost comatose state of continual sleep to one of being awake with me is such a gift. When 'awake' she still has the most amazing sense of zany humor and we actually talked one day for almost an hour...unbelievable!

I help with her care, as I can, I am there for my father in all ways, and I try my best to not only catalyze change and transformation with my natural energy gifts in family, but I seek to also find peace and balance in such a hard place, within me, as well. I do what I need to do for as long as I need to immediately do it..then move forward, if possible.

Now, I'm back in Oregon getting ready for an open house at the award winning home that my husband and son built (the very first certified Passive House on the Pacific coast) and trying to adjust and balance my own busy and often scattered life. I'm on always on the edge between my own worlds and ready to move old energies into new ones of change and transformation.

I do what I can to make a difference in one world and then move on to the next. To me, that is the very meaning of living (and healing) on the edge of life.

shown above:
my selvage cuff made after my last return from Juneau to warm and protect me from alien encounters

links:
Living Green

Bento Box Quilt Tutorial

Making a Bento Box quilt is not only a great deal of fun, it's also intrinsically creative. Using nothing but scraps (and my secret technique of selecting a color range based on being slightly off of the original focus fabric's colors) allows for a much more liberated feel to the entire project.

I had a few emails asking me how I'd made mine for the Bento'ed Out of My Box wedding gift quilt (they absolutely loved it!) and thought I'd share my easy liberated free piecing techniques. With a grateful nod to the original pattern, (which I have never seen) and without following any one else's directions, I simply created my own copyright free version. And with the addition of some free-pieced liberated mile-a-minute blocks in random chaos (many with deliberately disappearing edges) it sure makes for a wonderful optical illusion that encourages others to think you are far more talented than you truly are ;)

Since most Bento Box tutorials only show the making and cutting into quarters of a single block, I decided to showcase a variety of randomly created blocks to show how easy it is to add variety and use the simplest of scraps that you might have available in your scrap bins.

Blogger has lost all of my step by step photos.
Until I replace all of them, the collage above will help you identify the photos for the steps.

Step 1: Select a larger variety of randomly almost but not necessarily coordinating fabrics. Be free with your choices, values, color ranges, and focal variety..it's a lot more fun that way!

Step 2:
Select random center squares of a size of a choice...5", 6" ...whatever you want. Then simply add your logs...any size, any way you want... to alternating sides or tops/bottoms. I show my four different 'happy blocks' to display the variety I used.

I knew when they would be cut into quarters that I would prefer a variety of lights and darks, so two of my blocks have some lighter strips and two have some darker.




Step 3: Take each individual happy block and cut each one into quarters. (not shown, photo is in Salem, Or and I am on Douglas Island, Alaska)


Rather than measure, (remember I am using a liberated version!) simply fold a block in half one way...cut it open on that fold. Fold the block in the other direction, cut in half on the fold. You want 4 quarters from each block. I then had 16 smaller sections as a result.

Suddenly, you have your opportunity to mix it up! Mix and match the 16 quarters into new and amazingly random blocks. Such fun! Don't be too particular, but squint your eyes and see the values just a bit for some balance amidst the wonderful chaos!



Step 4 option: My extra bonus: randomly pieced mile-a-minute blocks all kitty corner and full of fun. Randomly placed, I later use my background fabric to sew side strips to each one, then top and bottom strips...box them in, but bento'ed for an overall look to the entire quilt.



Steps 5, 6, 7, and 8: Finish like a traditional quilt. Once the top is all pieced, and bordered, create a backing, add your batting, and quilt as desired! (skip the broken wrist brace unless absolutely necessary ;)



And you're done! And you know what? It was so much fun, you actually wish you weren't done yet...so have even more fun and add your bindings, your label on the back and any other little touches that make it your very own!

My free-pieced, free color range "Bento'ed Out of My Box" Bento Box quilt.

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!

Alzheimer's Illustrated: From Heartbreak to Hope

  

I am blessed and honored to have been one of 41 quilters whose works has been selected to travel in the next exhibit sponsored by the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative. More than 125 quilts were submitted for consideration and it is an absolute delight to have mine among the 41 quilters/53 quilts selected.

Mama's Brain Got Tangles....But Mama's Still Inside will hang in between quilts made of 10,000 patches that honor individuals who have/had Alzheimer's or related dementia's. I have 14 patches amongst those and another one that could be added in. 15 members of my immediate family have faced or are facing the challenges of Alzheimer's Disease and its insidious and arduous disease process.

I am also blessed to be in my Douglas Island home right now...with my mother and father, helping them face the challenges of their lives as they go through the many processes of AD .....physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Each day that I spend with them is an immense gift though there are many days that I wonder how any of those with loved ones battling this disease can bear so many losses upon losses. I have found that the only way to do this is not to battle at all.

To paraphrase the wonderful Buddhist Nun, Pema Chodrun....you don't fight the process of anything, you simply accept it, and go into it and feel the peace that still lies within.

I can do that with both of them, as I can with those of other family members who are so filled up with emotions that sometimes it pours out, and sometimes it boils out, and sometimes it erupts like volcano. For the process of Alzheimer's Disease does not simply attack those who carry its processes, it affects entire families and challenges each of us in ways that we can not possibly imagine.... until we actually walk its path.

I listen, I feel, and I process each family member's pain and anger and loss. I take it in with a breath, and let it out again, with another. It just simply is....as my mother and father both are, and as I am.

AAQI 2011 Traveling Exhibit:
Alzheimer's Illustrated: From Heartbreak to Hope
10,000 names of people who have or had Alzheimer's Disease are written in tribute to the 5.3 million Americans with this devastating disease on 182 quilts measuring six inches wide by seven feet tall. Displayed among them will be our Priority: Alzheimer's Quilts that illustrate Alzheimer's in some way. Quilts will begin traveling in January 2011.

LINKS:
Liberated Quilting Challenge
See the three quilts selected from our Liberated Challenge Group
See all of the selected quilts for this exhibit including my own 'Mama's Brain Got Tangles..."
The July Slow and Silent auction ends at 10pm on July 10, 2010. Please check out the quilts and consider making a bid on a quilt!

Liberated Quilting Challenge

Get the latest news about the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative on the AAQI BLOG!
For more frequent news follow the AAQI on FaceBook and Twitter.

Bento'ed Out of My Box

In five days time, I've lived in two states, 4 cities, a valley, a desert, and a rainforest. With only days to spare, I finished my free-wheeling 'Liberated Bento Box' quilt in time to bring it as a wedding gift for my Anchorage nephew and his new bride.

Our family had a wonderful time visiting Eagle River and Anchorage, we had a wonderfully fun wedding ceremony with the construction (up to the last minute) of a bamboo arch that my son and my daughter's S.O constructed as a backdrop for the wedding vows and we all danced up a storm under Japanese lanterns and origami cranes, symbols of good fortune, long life and a happy marriage.

My 'Liberated Bento Box' wedding gift quilt also featured cranes and was free quilted with chrysanthemums, swirls, and other free motion fun. I went a bit crazy adding random mile-a-minute borders but the free-piecing fun was so much fun, I didn't want any of it to end, so a mile a minute I went!

Free Bento Box Quilt Pattern Tutorial

It made me realize just how much the quilts we make, and the way that we all make them, seems to symbolize and mirror the energies of each of our lives.... whether we choose to live randomly with great spontaneity, or slowly and precisely with fore thought and detail.

I've gone from Salem, Oregon to Anchorage and Eagle River, Alaska and am now down in Juneau at my parents home on Douglas Island where I grew up. It's been a whirlwind of hard work, free spirited fun and being a perpetual good sport never knowing whose home, bed, air mattress or floor we might be sleeping on next!

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers for my mother and father, and my sister-in-law in Eagle River (who is doing surprisingly well now) and for voting for my son in the previous post ;)


love,
Michele
Salem , Oregon,
Anchorage, Eagle River, and Douglas Island, Alaska

20 Under 40

Forgive me....but I am SUCH a mom!

My son Blake, was nominated as one of 20 young people under the age of 40 in the Salem Oregon area of young professionals of recognition. At age 31, he is currently the builder of the first Passive House on the Pacific Coast. Passive House certified homes are the newest platinum plus standard leaving all other energy efficient homes miles behind.

Being one of a small group of extremely hard working young people in an area not always as recognized as those in the media, or sports, or the arts, or politics, I need help to cultivate a voting fan base (forgive me my favorite and only son for being a mom!)

Could you please take a minute, go to the link below and cast a vote for him? You may vote once a day...and I don't know how many days as I don't have the newspaper, as we are in Eagle River, Alaska right now.

Forgive a very proud mama her moment now and vote for my son, Blake...the 9th one down. I want him to know how proud this mama is of her amazingly hard working son! I am so proud I can't stand it...such a quiet, humble boy growing up....the kind that worked extra, extra hard, and was very humble.But I'm busting my buttons, now...or maybe it was the berry cheesecake followed by the Boston Cream Pie.....Michele writing from Eagle River Alaska...

click on Blake Bilyeu on this webpage to open his vote, then again on the larger font and its VOTE BUTTON: to Vote for Blake J. Bilyeu

Links:
First Passive House on the West Coast USA: 16th and Nebraska
Passive House Certification
Bilyeu Homes, Inc.
Passive House US
Living Green
Passive House Northwest

Youtube: Blake the Builder ;)