Quilters and Quilting Make a Difference! (Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative)

I am thrilled beyond words that one of the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiatives funding of reasearch grants, this one at Cornell University, has contributed to reasearch discoveries in breaking through the blood-brain-flow barrier! This is amazingly promising!

My blog header consists of several of the 75 small format art quilts (among thousands of quilters) that I personally donated for auction by our amazing founder, leader, quilter, and quilt creator Ami Simms from our raising of over One Million Dollars earned by their sales from 2006-2013. 

Amazing, amazing work and kudos to all involved at every level of funding and this research and discovery at Cornell University!

And for all of you who joined my two internet groups and made and donated 600  8" x 11 " small format art quilts for sale by AAQI, thank you and bless you!

Everyone reading here, check out the link below by Science Daily! 

AAQI is thanked on Science Daily's release of Cornell Universitys discovery right along with the National Institute of Health!

Love it and all who were involved in any way!

One more example of how quilters and quilting makes a difference!

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190211164005.htm?fbclid=IwAR06hDD5MOXblBeGYwheOZSunhcz1W9lyXWdMBNTQ-EAgsRwhGn12MmcqlI

"The team has identified approximately 20 drugs, many of them already FDA approved for human use, that have potential in dementia therapy and are screening these drugs in Alzheimer's mice now.

Schaffer said he's "super-optimistic" that, if the same capillary-blocking mechanism is at play in humans as it is in mice, this line of research "could be a complete game-changer for people with Alzheimer's disease."

This research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation, the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative, and the Brightfocus Foundation."

My personal links:

 Heartbreak to Hope

Liberated Quilting Challenge




Ami Simms current personal blog:

https://amisimms.com

Michele Bilyeu Creates With Heart and Hands as she shares her imaginative, magical, and healing journey from Alaska to Oregon. Creating, designing, sewing, quilting, and wildcrafting... from my heart and with my hands.Science Daily: Alzheimer's Research Breaks the Blood-Brain Barrier

Snippets and Threadtales:Yes, I'm Certifiable!

Have you been wondering about me? Wonder no more...I am fully certifiable, now!  Not quite sure what I am certified for..but let's just say I spend far more time in health care facilities than I do at home!

They may not have wrapped me in a white jacket yet, but I'm well on my way! Life is a challenge and that's all there is to it..but we still get to choose how we react to it, and what we do or do not choose to do with our lives.

So, yes...lots and lots of quilt therapy and the updating of all four of my active blogs., the very best I can. I also moderate a Caring Bridge site for updating close family and friends on my brother and sister-in-law and I still visit my MIL, Dorothy, who is now in hospice in end stage of advanced bone cancer.

Considering we live outside of all service areas for Internet service and don't have satellite anything, I'm lucky to get two bars out of five with my plug-in broadband internet service. Some days it's on par with the slowness of dial-up and someone flipped my dial to the wrong location!

But yes, I still blog, still update tons of photos to all of my blogs and yes...I QUILT!

Here is a worn out me, sewing with my group and here are some of the fun things I have made to donate to wonderful causes, lately:

My totally tubular streak of lightning quilts...tutorial coming soon to this blog, by me and near you!!!!

and four little leftover snippets and threadtales potholders for donation. The quilts go to the preemie ward of the Salem Hospital, the potholders are sold by my Mid-Valley Quilt Guild to raise money for other charitable causes.

And to showcase, the quilt, below......I just created a whole blog post full of links to free.....

Disappearing 9 Patch, 16 Patch and Twist/Turn Variations...so check out my blog post about them

on one of my other blogs...Free Quilt Patterns 

Free quilt patterns are always available at this site...check my sidebar, right, for tons of links to thousands and thousands of links I've saved since 2006!

!
The Disappearing, or Fractured Nine Patch quilt has been finished and previously donated to charity.
Easy to make, and so much fun..and there are SO many variations...link above!!!

I made 'Breast Pockets' for Melanie Testa's projects to create awareness for those who choose not to reconstruct after mastectomies. 



Melanie is a wonderful free spirit with a rock star personality so hence the artsy and grungy grafitti look of some...as well as my usual sweet love approach forthree others. Melanie is absolutely a '10" and a 'Star' as well as a "Rock Star" for all she does to continue to educate us about women's post cancer/post mastectomy choices.

I still take daily care of Matilda, Penelope, Georgette and Gig......our chickens.  Taking care of chickens involves feeding and watering, collecting eggs, and letting them out in the morning and locking them up in their coop at night.

But in our own free spirited, Gigi's case...it also involves trying to get her to come down from trees!  My super zoom makes her super fuzzy with my small Nikon but there she is!  And yes, some chickens can actually fly..over fences, up into trees, and out of site in a single flight!

Kermit, our lone remaining cat, since the oh so very sad losses of my beloved Keira and Willow, has turned back to her true nature of only wanting to be outside.

But she and the chickens are best of friends. Well, except for Georgette, our alpha hen who literally chases Kermit across the back deck as fast as she possibly can! It's pretty hilarious and no beaking or biting is involved but still..poor Kermit!


She's a good natured gal and loves to hang with the best of them, no matter what!  Another little quilt that was made from cast off scraps from a guild member and is now a soft flannel baby quilt. I do so love my freecycle tables!

And I already showed you my Oceanside Museum of Art Prayer Flags

 

And then of course, my beloved Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) quilts..these two were donated for October and November as part of my   Quilt of the Month *QAM* promise.

My AAQI Quilting: Registered and For Sale Soon! 'Miss November':               12,614 - Imperfectly Perfect in Every Way! And last month's 'Miss October'
Yep, always busy...but still having fun! And did you wonder about the November AAQI Celebrity Quilt Auction??? Check out the Celebrity Quilt Auction: Final Bids.....   AMAZ.....ING!!!! Thank you Celebrity Quilters from all of us who support this wonderful cause!   And PS...Miracles continue! My brother is getting better, week by week, and day by day!!! And his wife, my SIL, Becky, is hanging in there awaiting a kidney transplant.      They just  moved Doug into a 'Respite Apartment' in the care facility. I call it the "Presidetial Suite". He says "I don't know what I did to deserve this room!" And I told him, they just discovered your no cap insurance plan." Yep, how it works with insurance!  He is probably over 5 million by now as my friend's son hit 1 million in a month. Yes, we need even more insurance reform and more equal coverage for all!  This may be very, very nice, but it does not make it fair...not even in our eyes, when he gets the room!

Michele Bilyeu blogs With Heart and Hands as she shares a quilting journey through her life in Salem, Oregon and Douglas, Alaska and all of her AAQI Quilting. 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!

Bloggers Fall Quilt Festival

   

Each and every quilt that I create has an inspiration, a creative design, and a special intent, and purpose beyond the simple act of sewing. 

So, each and every quilt has deep and personal heartstrings of love between the act of creation, and the act of giving. 

Almost all of my quilts are given away. My bed quilts are usually wedding gifts, or for disaster relief, my comfort quilts go to those in need in hospitals, nursing homes, or in foster care,  my baby quilts welcome new babies into the world whether they are members of my family, are children or grandchildren of my friends, or little ones that I will never meet in a variety of hospitals preemie wards, everywhere. 

 

But my own little art quilts hold the nearest, and dearest, and most meaning filled ties to my own hands and my own heart. 

So, when selecting a quilt for Amy's Bloggers Quilt Festival this year, I selected an art quilt that was a requested commission. I had made and donated a similar quilt to the  Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) as part of the Liberated Quilting Challenge  that I created and run. 

That quilt, 'Change and Transition' was selected for AAQI's monthly auction and its bidding war was quickly escalating its price beyond what one talented quilter, and bidder on my quilt, felt she could afford.  But she loved it and truly wanted to own it. So, she had written me when the little 9" x 12" art quilt's bid went up over $100 and asked if she could commission  a trade of some kind in order to get one of my little quilts for herself.

That tiny little quilt ended up with a final auction price of $125. Not my highest auction bid to date,  but definitely not my lowest! And oh how I do so love earning money for a good cause! 

But I also love creating for my own spirit's sake and I do so love sharing with others, as well!

However, it was a time of  so many personal challenges. A time when I was spending all of my time helping family members face life, or death situations. A time when I really did not think I could possibly find one more minute, much less the five days it usually takes me to design and create one of these tiny quilts. 

I have to be in an uplifted state of mind, body, and spirit, to infuse the quilts with the joy and healing energies that I want each one to carry. And I need to allow myself the freedom of intent and purpose to manifest that state within me, to carry forth into the purpose and manifestation within each art quilt.  

I had to take a deep breathe, a big thought, and a huge jump to saying..."Yes, I can." And so I did!

And this little art quilt "Ethereal I" for Lynne Tyler, by special request, became a validation of the ability to create even when under pressure, even when limited by severe time constraints, and even when you think you can't add even one more tiny, little thing into your life.

 

And because I could, I made all kinds of other little things. I made bookmarks, and fabric backed business cards, and mug mats and my act of creating 'just a little bit more' grew and grew! And each and every tiny little gift of the heart created new energies of creativity within my own self. They never have to be big things, they never have to be perfect things, you just need to nurture and manifest creativity in any shape, any form that lifts your own spirit and makes your own heart sing.

By the time my brother was rushed to the ER in Anchorage and we were told he probably wasn't going to make it, when his wife my SIL needed a kidney transplant, and I was asking everyone to join me in Praying for a Miracle, and then of course, my MIL was diagnosed with advanced bone cancer, just as my own mother, now in her 8th year of advanced Alzheimer's is now in her own last stage of life...well, I know now, that life and crises keep going until life, itself finally ends. 

So, 'yes, I can!' was really and truly begun when I made this little quilt. 

And so, I selected it as my fall entry into Amy's Bloggers Quilt Festival.

 

http://amyscreativeside.com/2012/10/26/bloggers-quilt-festival-fall-2012/

Michele Bilyeu blogs With Heart and Hands as she shares a quilting journey through her life in Salem, Oregon and Douglas, Alaska and all of her AAQI Quilting. 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!

 10,680 - Ethereal 

And just because I can...I even made another variation, another "Ethereal" that has also been donated to my favorite cause to earn even more money for Alzheimer's research!

Yes, I can...and Yes, you can...and Yes, we all can, too!