My Saturday Art Quilting Mania!

It was 99º in my sewing nook and our seventeen year old cat, Willow, had hopped up to join me and see if she could apply loose cat hair as an additional embellishment, today. She did, and it's not half bad! I've been on a steaming hot roll and nothing is going to stop me!

I was all excited about some new gifts I had received in the mail...new Shiva Paintsticks from Embellishment Village, along with some fabulous rubbing plates!

I had ordered them using a gift certificate, I had most generously been awarded by Betty Blais of Embellishment Village, for having reached my AAQI $1,000 Promise.

There were so many fun and exciting things to choose from the site that I had a hard time deciding, but these were items I knew I would definitely use, and re-use in the making of art quilts... and I've already started using them and they are wonderful!

And then, the fabulous and fun Beth Hartford at Quilters Stitch Together (and also our lovely AAQI Quilt Registrar Supreme) had mailed me some gorgeous hand dyes as another part of my reaching that goal. A beautiful shade of energizing orange and one of bright and grounding green. Awesome hand dyes! And perfect, of course, for art quilts! Oh, it was so much fun finding out I earned gifts, and even more fun receiving them in the mail!

And while I haven't received the package in the mail yet, so the photo above is a digitally altered to represent what I might get, the word on the AAQI express is that my final gift will be a selection of products from Surgeon's Secrets products from Jamark Labs Now, I'm showing their Survival Secrets gift pack ..it was the kind of day...and I could have used everything but the animal call and the camouflage suit... but I'm hoping for lip gloss, lotions, bath products, or their wonderful skin care products. But, I'll be thrilled with anything! Thank you so much to these fabulous sites. I can't wait to see what Jamark Labs sends me, for real! (note from later...lovely real life gift pack received...beeswax lotion in a fabulous tube, a rub on stick of lavender lotion, a beewax lip balm, and a hand scrub/softening product...beautifully gift boxed and exquisite to use!)

Please do go over and check them ALL out! I'd love to thank them by sending them even more business!

So, yep...I was (am) hot and ready in all my tropical Oregon hotness (and in spite of the upstairs heat ) ready to start some art quilting and couldn't wait to make some art and begin some free motion quilting on my next little AAQI art quilt.

And suddenly...all chaos broke out in the already over heated sewing nook. I ironed the wrong side of the Wonder Under of my art quilt right smack onto to my ironing board as I pressed it flat in prep for quilting. Yep, nicely attached to the ironing board...good job, Michele!

Then, I sewed a piece of material onto the back of my art quilt that wasn't supposed to be attached, with super tiny stitches as I was after, all art quilting and was trying out different stitches including, apparently, microscopic!

And hot, hot, hot because I could not, for the life of me, get my metallic gold thread that I have quilted with many times, to stay in the needle without shredding.,,.over and over and over. Re-thread the machine, re-thread the bobbin, adjust the tension, re-thread the machine, re-thread the bobbin. Oh, I was on a roll, all right. But I was still having fun!!!

The phone rings, and my husband looks at caller ID and announces: "It's another spam call. Don't answer it!"

I answer it anyway, I'm spatially dyslexic... and can't telling picking up/ from putting down...and it was...oh my goodness get ready for this.... Ami Simms !

I mean, here I am braving the heat in my Sewing Sauna making an art quilt and Ami calls! Wow...talk about timing!

She was calling to congratulate me on having six quilts donated, all in a row, for the AAQI Quilt A Month program! Boy, two goals in a row..how fun is this? Now that is a whole 'nother kind of nice feeling hot! Like hey! I just won a phone call, in person, from Ami Simms....how cool is that?

Now, I have emailed Ami Simms back and forth, many, many times for a variety of volunteer reasons but I've never spoken to her... one on one.

But, all I could think of ...was that I was so glad she didn't have an accent!

Since, my airplane "incident" in 2008 of Failed Wheel Flaps and Quick Landings on the way back from taking care of my mom in Alaska, I have had the most amazing tinnitus in my right ear from the forced super fast landing! And ever since, I cannot understand accents!

I have to put the words on the screen just for OPB series when people are speaking English English. I can't understand people from other States,it's impossible from other Countries, and I almost can't understand them if they are from one of the other Oregon zip codes then mine!

In between expressing fervent internal gratitude that she doesn't have an accent, I am thinking 'don't talk, don't talk'. I didn't mean her, I meant me! I was terrified I would start telling her everything that was going on at the moment and totally freak her out. Yep, that could easily be me.

So, bless my heart, my fried brain, and ringing ear, they pretty much kept me from even having much of a conversation. Sorry, Ami. And if I blabbered and did tell you my life story and have already forgotten it...the truth is.....you dialed the wrong number because I actually wasn't even home!

Phew. Good thing I think quickly on my feet!

Now, if I can just get the wonder under ironed onto the fabric softener sheet meant to loosen it from the cat hair on the ironing board, maybe the gold thread will help hide all my mistakes today! Nothing like a little embellishment for an art quilting Saturday!

But hey! I've got my fabulous Shiva paintsticks and rubbing plates, two lovely, lovely pieces of hand dyed fabrics from a fabulous fabric dye-er and pretty soon my hands are going to be as soft as a 20 year old's. Who knows? Maybe I will even be able to perform surgery and get that cat hair off the ironed wonder under that is sticking to my ironing board.

Mask up! I'm on it!

And if all else fails...sign me up for a rest home! This one is fabulous...watch their hilarious cute video: Clark Retirement Home

AAQI August Mega-Awesome Auction

The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative is feeling the August heat and turning UP the creative thermostat with the creation of its August Mega-Auction.

AAQI is auctioning off 20 quilts from the first traveling exhibit, "Alzheimer's: Forgetting Piece by Piece." The selection includes quilts by Diane Gaudynski, Sue Nickels, Mary Stori, Marsha McCloskey, Nancy Brenan Daniel, Melody Crust, Mary Stori, Elsie Campbell, Debbie Bowles and others.

When Ami Simms first 'dreamed her dream' of creating a group where quilters could work together to make quilts that would touch the lives and souls of all of us walking the journey with loved ones with Alzheimer's Disease, she knew that she wanted quilters to somehow make a difference by earning monies for Alzheimer's research. But I doubt that even she could envision the day when over 100 of those art quilts quilts, and 236 name quilts, would end up traveling the United States for years at a time....and end up touching the lives of every one who has seen them.

The first traveling exhibit, featuring 52 of these special quilts, became a story of Ami's own vision of hope. A story created by Ami's journey with her mother's Alzheimer's, her 'showerburst' moment of creativity when she first envisioned the spark that would become AAQI, and a dream of a group of quilters making a difference, one little quilt at a time. That dream became a request for quilts, the creation of a quilt exhibit, and that exhibit's traveling the country and touching hearts.

And now, after so many years of their travels, the quilts have finally come home from that first traveling exhibit. And thanks to the quilter's generosity, many of them have been donated back again to AAQI and put at auction. And that is the quilt story of our AAQI Mega-Auction.

As usual, our August will begin on the first of the month, and end on the tenth. All of the quilts will be offered through Benefit Bidding on August 1,2011. But you can check them all out now as they are already available for viewing:

I look at the black and white and shades of grey quilt, shown above, made by nationally recognized, award-winning, quilt-artist Melody Crust, and I read, and think deeply about her words.


I-389 Fade to Gray
Melody Crust
Kent, WA USA
Width: 38" Length: 40"

Melody writes:

"As an artist, I am always enveloped in color. Every minute of every day is about glorious reds, warm, rich browns, the thrill of that perfect shade of purple, and the myriad shades of green. I love them all.

Alzheimer’s is about losing life's colors — words evaporate from vocabularies, memories that define us and enrich our lives fade and disappear. Yet the human spirit is resilient and our capacity to hope for a better tomorrow persists. I quilted that "hope" with bright threads over the surface of the quilt.

"Fade To Gray's" red binding represents the love and generosity surrounding Alzheimer’s patients and their families, as whole communities work together to find a cure."

Melody Crust's beautiful quilt was one of 54 quilts that was part of the "Forgetting Piece by Piece" traveling exhibit, sponsored by AAQI that traveled the U.S. from August 2006 until October of 2010. The quilts were shown in 49 veneus in 31 states and more than 300,000 people had the opportunity to view the collection and learned about Alzheimer's.

Now 20 of those quilts have been donated by their owners back to AAQI for this extra-ordinary auction and you have the opportunity to not only bid on these quilts, but potentially own one of them.

Check out the quilts, mark your calendar, and bid generously on the quilt (s) of your choice during the AAQI Mega-Awesome-Auction which runs from August 1-10 :)

August Online MEGA Auction!

Mary Lou Weidman Book: We Have a Winner!!

Now, that Mary Lou Weidman has published her most recent book...Out of the Box With Easy Blocks...Fun with Free-Form Piecing ....which is just now "hot off the Martingale press.we can all see purple cows, and brightly colored cats, and chickens and ice cream cones and lollipops and even birthday cakes and cupcakes. And we can not only see them.....but be them.... with angels, and princesses and people of all kinds!

And one special reader and blog commenter gets to own her own personalized copy of Mary Lou's newest book. Using a random number generator, the winner of the book is.......#97. And that is.....Lynn who blogs at The Quilting Mama.

Reading her blog, I discovered that while she may only blog a few times a month, she has small children AND I discovered that she makes and donates quilts for AAQI!

Wow, Lynn...a lovely, lovely coincidence. Thank you Lynn for entering my drawing and I know you are just going to love this new book by Mary Lou!

How fate selects winners from these random number generator is quite amazing! It only goes to show, it's never too late to enter a contest, since this was a very late number! #97 out of 102 entries! The odds are still evenly spaced in the random world of numbers!



And for all of you who were so super about commenting...just know that Mary Lou Weidman and her daughters came over repeatedly to read all of your cute comments and check out my blog post and were so very complimentary about it all.

It truly was great fun and I only wish I could have given out more books but you can still order your own...right from Marylou


Order Mary Lou's newest book

Trust me, you won't be disappointed, it's such a fun book and there are so many more ideas than even I have shown in my previous post!

Congratulations, Lynn! And please send me your snail mail address so I can get your new book into the mail!

Are your link lists failing to update for me in your sidebars? Please become my blog friend in my friend connect box for instant updates and photos. It will only showup in linking gadgets if I multiply publish under both domain and blogspot and I'm having huge problems doing that each time. So, do please just 'friend' me :)

Win a Just Released Mary Lou Weidman Book!

I am delighted to offer my readers an opportunity for winning a free copy of Mary Lou Weidman's very newest book : Out of the Box With Easy Blocks...Fun with Free-Form Piecing ....which is just now "hot off the Martingale press."

Co-written with the talented, Melanie Bautista McFarland, this book is a whimsical and colorful exploration of fun and free-form piecing ideas and techniques that follows Mary Lou's previous book (Out of the Box....Unleash your Creativity Through Quilts) with new ways to think (and to quilt) outside of the box... but still within your own creative abilities!

And while Mary Lou's first "Out of the Box" book was chock full of ideas for her now famous story quilts and encouraged creative embellishment, this one is all about the whimsical process of introducing free-piecing fun into your quilts and quilting!


Mary Lou and Mel offer a variety of of ideas for piecing techniques for new angle cuts and blocks such as the liberated money wrench block and a zany group of cats, chickens, and cows as well as...

cakes, cupcakes, 'ice-pop' popsickles, ice cream cones, taffy, and lollipops.

And then for the healthy part of any quilting diet, there are apples, pineapples, happy hearts, and liberated stars and of course, Mary Lou's now famous pieced flowers..both in and out of their little pots.




And for even more fun..there are even liberated handbags and free-pieced shoes, and so many, many ideas for piecing people and a wonderful variety of faces! And some of those faces might even be used for royalty or fairy princesses or even some delightfully charming angels! They are all in this book with graphing diagrams, material and cutting lists.


But wait, there's even more! The famous "latte' girl" had to include her coffeepots and coffee cups and then there are her hugs, smiles and other fun with her new version of her hoochy mama fun alphabet.

"Hoochy" fun is when one of Mary Lou's 80 year old students yelled out "Hoochy Mama' with joy and celebration every time she made a new block in class. "Hoochy mama" fun, in this sense, is a good and healthy zest for life filled with joy and exuberance.

This hoochy alphabet is a pieced, rather than appliqued one, but one that still maintains the charming folkloric look that Mary Lou's story quilts are so famous for. So, it is perfect for combining with free-pieced and new angled blocks, rectangles, and other fun shapes, as well.

If you're still quilting from within the box...now's your chance to learn a few techniques with diagrams, and wonderful graphics that will help you liberated yourself to new ways to create familiar forms sewn 'out of the box..with easy blocks."



And if you've already taken the first learning steps towards free-pieced liberation....here's your chance to dramatically increase your repertoire of creative block and free-piecing ideas and techniques by adding zany new faces and spaces to wonderful new places!

Mary Lou shares her same zest and love of life, her faith, and her passion for colors, stories, and lots of quilting fun but in a brand new location. So be sure to bookmark the spot for her new blog's location at MARY LOU AND WHIMSY TOO

If you don't have a blog, leave a note that says how I can reach you or that you are emailing me privately with additional contact information. Email me at quiltingjourney@gmail.com to tell me your not so secret identity so you have a chance to both win and receive your book ;)


Order the book from Mary Lou

Well hello... Mel and Mary Lou! ...and thanks so much for the new book !

Leave a comment in my comment box, below... for a chance to win this great new AUTOGRAPHED book!

And MAKE SURE your profile is set to connect to email as described above to have a winning chance for this! And if you are not a blogger, leave at least your first name, last initial and a valid email address where I can reach you in the comment or email me at quiltingjourney@gmail.com with that info.

I have extended the drawing by just a few hours so missing email addy's and can still email me at quiltingjourney at gmail dot com

Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show: The Alice Quilts and Other Wonders

One of the most delightful parts of the entire Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show was the 'Cover to Cover' book club quilter's amazing challenge.....The "Alice" Quilts. In an effort to make more interesting quilts (and be motivated to get them finished) this unique group of artists decided to challenge themselves by reading books and making quilts based upon a common selection.



Inspired by the book club reading group of quilters selection of Lewis Carroll's classic "Alice in Wonderland" as their theme challenge, all members read their 'Alice' book and each of them then created their own version of a quilt using "Alice in Wonderland" and its characters, settings, and themes, as their inspiration.



The Portland area quilters created an amazing assortment of art quilts in that process and it was great fun seeing how even a common theme might present itself very differently to different quilters.





It really was impossible to pick a favorites, but I kept going back to a number of them noticing different features or ways of quilting them each and every time.





And yep, pretty much they ALL made me feel happy and grinning from ear to ear! No wonder this has been a favorite of children and adults alike..and now, we can all see why!

From With Heart and Hands

Makes me want to reread "Alice in Wonderland"...from Cover to Cover ;)

Links to my recent posts and Sister's Quilt Show photos:
Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show 2011
Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show: Diverse, Modern, Liberated and Fun!
Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show: The Alice Quilts and Other Wonders

Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show: Diverse, Modern, Liberated and Fun!

Part 2 of the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show 2011 begins with "Zipper Mania" with Wendy Hill. Wendy had her work showcases at the Sister's Public Library..right as you entered! And you knew with a glance that form, not function, is at the heart of this artist's creations!

Wendy has been collecting zippers since 2008 for use and reuse in her modern art quilts and other projects. Most appeared to be made from those giant industrial zipper rolls you buy new that seamstresses use. The colors were amazing fun and her gift of creative lines and other projects were impressive!

Yes, she quilts with zippers...some open, some shut...but none should be pushed or pulled or touched ;) And yes, I wanted to but I resisted!

That's a zipper quilt..all zippers!... another one, below...zippers!


And yes, this is curved quilting ...with zippers every where!
And yes...zipper jewelry and zipper art

More zippers, more art...sorry it's through a glass cabinet door, but I didn't want the alarms to go off, or me to be wearing zippered handcuffs in order to take clearer photos!


Zippered modern art ala those pencil creations you see online and other fun zipper odds and ends. We are all standing in the opening to the Sister's Library.....like tight little pieces of gum in a foil packet.. ..all trying to take photos without each others hands, purses, backs, or cameras in the way.

Plus they have public bathrooms and the aisle to the photos below are there in front of them!

In the library...challenge quilts seeking to go a bit beyond the norm:


The one in the middle, above, had to be seen to believed. I saw it, not sure I totally believed it..so much detail, I wanted it lower down and closer up or maybe I just wished I'd had a ladder to get up there!

lots of variety...all part of the same thematic exhibit....

"Oregon:State of Diversity" by Studio Art Quilt Associates of Oregon








We found the Portland Modern quilters out in a courtyard sunning themselves and their quilts:

And their quilts all over hung from the buildings along the courtyard's sides....









Yes...Cher got into two more photos...
Doni...where are you? Maybe she'd headed off to find her golfing husband. But we persevered..And I kept on...searching for my own style of quilted liberation:

Looked way, way up to see some liberated letters ....I've seen this from one of 'us' who blogs...anyone know whose it is? Tonya Ricucci did! She recognized it as Kristin Shield's..one of our Liberated quilters from Bend, Oregon.

Looking inside the Stitchin' Post at employee quilts...looking, looking....for that which is just off the map a bit...here on the left, below...off the grid, and on the right..on the grid, traditional but lovely Kathy D and her Material Obsessions! But she also made some of the liberated quilts shown in this post, as well!

Liberated log cabins , strips, and bars abounded...




And then the curved piecing on the right, in liberated 'landscapes'...ala Jean Wells...
Liberation and the freedom to always think outside of a building, outside of a box, and around each and every block always exists.....it's up to you to discover it!

I'd call these Liberated Hexagons on the right above..heck, there not acting like traditional ones! (the carpet sign hangs from chains at the store front, n front of and not the quilt...) This is another Kathy Doughty of Material Obsessions.

A variety of others..notice the guy? We had tons of men...looking, photographing, and admiring in general! Who know, some were probably even quilters! Go guys!!!

(Kathy Doughty, I do believe) had a blast just piecing her strings every which way ala Anna Williams or passage quilts style.

And this one (by Bonnie's friend, Randy) could have hopped right off of Finn's 'Orphan Train.'


And this one is for Liberated Cowgirls and Guys! Hey...is that a liberated or a modern Robot! He seems friendly! And it's Sisters Oregon, y'all!!!

It was a great one day show, with so many quilts that it will take a few more posts to showcase all of my photos.The Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show..nothing in the world quite like it!

Did you miss my first post? Check out the amazing Gee's Bend Quilters, the Stitchin' Post quilts, and the Teacher's Tent among others:

Links to my recent posts and Sister's Quilt Show photos:
Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show 2011
Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show: Diverse, Modern, Liberated and Fun!
Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show: The Alice Quilts and Other Wonders