AAQI Sprints to a Grand $1M Retirement Finale!

AAQI and Our Million Dollar Finale
The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) is racing to the finish line with a grand finale....we hope to realize our $1,000,000 goal in 2013! So, with all of that in mind, Ami Simms and the AAQI Board of Directors have reached the consensus that the AAQI fund raising efforts will close at the end of 2013.

This has been a fabulous, fabulous project and it has done amazing work! We will continue to register quilts donated through August 1, 2013 of this year, to sell them and to raise additional funding for AAQI with the goal of hitting that million dollar mark with one big, gigantic, and fabulous hurrah for everything that Ami has done, her fabulous core group of volunteers have done, and most of all.....every single thing that every single one of US has done to bring this group to this awesome finish line!


And for all of you who are asking WHY..WHY is this the last year?

Here is how our founder and director, Ami Simms shared the news today in various formats:



Ami Simms:
“When I created the AAQI back in 2006, I never expected it to become so successful,” she said. “I also never imagined how much work it would take to keep it going. As the AAQI blossomed, board members and core volunteers have had to increase our hours and pace to keep up. While I find enormous satisfaction in nurturing the AAQI, I much prefer sewing to administrating. I miss just being a full-time quilter.

More than 13,000 quilts have been donated and to date more than $883,000 has been raised. “For many donors,” Simms said, “these quilts were healing works of art that helped them grieve as they stitched for the greater good.” AAQI has also sponsored two traveling quilt exhibits which have been viewed by hundreds of thousands of people.


Money raised by AAQI has funded 11 research studies at six universities and a medical school. Three more studies will be funded this month and the goal is to fund more throughout 2013. “Because of the AAQI, scientists know a little bit more about Alzheimer’s than they did before. Hopefully this understanding will bring us all closer to a cure.”
For more information about the organization and its “sprint to the finish”, visit the AAQI website and read the “Important Message from the Executive Director.” which I have enclosed below, as well:








Note from Ami Simms:
"The Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative will most likely reach the $1,000,000 mark in money raised for Alzheimer’s research some time in 2013!

The work of your hands and the compassion in your hearts has brought us to this milestone. I will be forever grateful to each and every one of you for your support and dedication.


What began as one person’s response to sorrow and frustration has grown into a national charity embraced by a large portion of the quilting community. More than 13,000 quilts have beendonated, turning sweat equity into over $883,000 for research so far.

For many donors these quilts were healing works of art which helped them grieve as they stitched for the greater good. Hundreds of thousands of people have seen the AAQI’s two traveling quilt exhibits about Alzheimer’s.

Through this artistry came the realization for many that they were not alone on this journey of heartbreak; others understood, perhaps for the first time, what a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s really means. Together quilters have funded 11 research studies at six universities and a medical school. Three more studies will be funded this month and hopefully more throughout 2013. Because of the AAQI, scientists know a little bit more about Alzheimer’s than they did before. Hopefully this understanding will bring us all closer to a cure.

When I created the AAQI back in 2006, I never expected it to become so successful! I also never imaged how much work it would take to keep it going. As the AAQI blossomed, board members and core volunteers have had to increase our hours and pace to keep up. While I find enormous satisfaction in nurturing the AAQI, I much prefer sewing to administrating. I miss just being a full-time quilter.

For this reason, 2013 will be the last year of fundraising for the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative. I hope you will help the AAQI reach our goal of One Million Dollars for research and then at the end of 2013 celebrate with everyone who made this tremendous achievement possible. Please review the important dates below:


February 15, 2013: All bookings for the traveling exhibit “Alzheimer’s Illustrated: From Heartbreak to Hope” must be finalized.

March 1, 2013: First online auction of quilts from “Alzheimer’s Illustrated: From Heartbreak to Hope” traveling exhibit. Twenty-six Name Quilts will be auctioned during the first 10 days of March, April, May, June, July, August, and September. Payment will be required at the conclusion of each auction with shipping in October 2013 after the exhibit retires. The 54 Priority: Alzheimer’s Quilts from the traveling exhibit will be auctioned during the first 10 days of October and December.

July 2013: Last month to participate in the Quilt-A-Month Club.

August 1, 2013: Last day to register Priority: Alzheimer’s Quilts. Quilts delivered to scanners after August 20 will be refused.

October 29 – November 3, 2013: International Quilt Festival. We hope to be invited back one last time to sell quilts in Houston, TX.

November 1-10, 2013: Celebrity Invitational Quilt Online Auction

December 30, 2013: Last day Priority: Alzheimer’s Quilts can be purchased online.

December 31, 2013: Quilts For Sale and Donation pages will be removed from the AAQI website and all solicitations will cease.

2014-2015: The Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative will monitor research grants awarded in 2013. The AQQI web page will be left intact for at least six months. Any funds not needed to sustain the AAQI’s final expenses will be donated to research. Remaining assets will be disposed of according to IRS regulations after which time the corporation will be dissolved.


There is still much work to this year as we sprint to the finish line. I hope everyone who reads this will join in, either as a seasoned veteran or a first time quilt donor or quilt buyer. We will continue to make a difference until the very last quilt is sold. Let’s make 2013 the best year ever!


Thank you for your support,

Ami Simms
Founder & Executive Director
Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative"

Michele Bilyeu Creates With Heart and Hands: Alzheimer's Illustrated:From Heartbreak to Hope

https://www.with-heart-and-hands.com/p/alzheimers-illustrated-my-own.html

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!

AAQI: Art Quilts and Alzheimer's Research

NOTE:

Sorry, the photos disappeared once AAQI closed it doors! We raised over ONE MILLION DOLLARS with the sale of these tiny art quilts!!!

I created and donated 75 small format art quilts and made over $4,500 for Alzheimer's research funding so I have many, many posts with missing photos! I will replace them as I can, bit by bit, over time!

Original post at this site:

I'm delighted to report that my 9" x 12" AAQI quilt Transitioning Between the Polarities earned $80 at auction towards Alzheimer's research funding. All Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative auctions are held from day 1 to 10 of each new month. The next one begins on June 1st and runs through the 10th. Every auction follows this pattern and all end at 10 pm of each final night.

Thank you and many blessing to Rene' of Rene Creates, who bought my AAQI quilt at auction.

Now that it has officially been released that no study to date has shown any way to prevent or to slow down the transmission or process of Alzheimer's...not playing chess, nor crossword puzzles, not Sudoku, not an active, exercising lifestyle..and unfortunately not even being Internet savvy or having an active life in blogging or message boards that keep our hearts, hands, and mind alive! Dang! This just is not right!!!!!!

All we can do now is support research and keep studying, testing, and maybe inventing and trying gene therapies to treat or hopefully alter this in the future!!! And research monies are still desperately needed. Our quilts, and the money they earn through AAQI make such a difference in so many ways!

My brother and others from my family have been visiting us in Oregon this week, just as this study was released, and as it was announced that Walgreen's Pharmacy would be putting out a DNA test kit...spit in a cup and mail it in...that would include the results of any of us being likely to get Alzheimer's. Scary times...would you want to know, or would you rather just prefer hope that you had somehow eluded your family probability? The debate on that and whether Walgreen's will face potential lawsuits on either reliability or accountability for errors will no doubt rage in the media!

I have two more AAQI quilts currently on sale. Apparently, if we send them in multiples at a time, this may happen... as it has to me. Rather than my other two being on the assignment for the June auction list, they were simply assigned a 'price' and are at Quilts for Sale on the AAQI website. Let's face it, Ami Simms and her volunteers do an outstanding job and any way she gets our quilts out there and up for sale to earn monies for Alzheimer's research is a good thing!

My other two art quilts are:

4946 - Liberated Rose
see Quilts For Sale

4948 - Alzheimer's: It's More Than Black and White
Update:Sale Pending! Thank you so much to somebody very wonderful :)









Check out the page, there are hundreds up for sale, and many of our Liberated Challenge
quilts are still on this list awaiting purchase. Yours might be there, and you aren't aware of it!

If you have quilts that have not yet sold from a previous auction, they can be found on the website under Look at All the Quilts for all other current quilts and postcards. Perhaps you can talk someone into buying one or buying one yourself for a friend or family member as a gift.

Supporters have been known to create art galleries of AAQI quilts, either buying back their own favorites or buying those of others that they would love to own or display...at home or at work. It makes a wonderful conversational grouping, as well as a way of showing support for this wonderful cause.

To see all of our own groups' donated quilts, check out my update complete with photos of each art quilt or postcard at our group blog at:

Liberated Quilters: Our AAQI Challenge Quilts Latest Update

Twitter Updates from Ami Simms at AAQI

• Just sold quilt #4799, #4941, #4952, #4923, #4660, #1719 and #4957. Need a quilt? Visit www.aaqi.org/quiltsforsale.html about 9 hours ago
• You've got 50 minutes to place your bids on MAY quilt auction ending 10 pm EDT. Hurry: http://www.aaqi.org/quiltauction.html Pls RT 1 day ago
• An AAQI {supporter} shares her story: http://with-heart-and-hands.blogspot.com/2010/05/transitioning-between-polarities.html 5 days ago

follow the AAQI on TwitterLiberated 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.

"And The Greatest of These is Love" - AAQI Quilt #15,000

I am so honored that my quilt "And The Greatest of These is Love" is the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative's quilt #15,000.

And to know that my quilt is #15,000 and that it is my own #75th quilt that I have donated, marks such a monumental milestone for AAQI and for me and truly means so very much in so many different ways.

I began making and donating my small format art quilts in 2007. I was in Alaska, in my childhood home, on my beloved little Douglas Island across the Gastineau Channel from the capital city of Juneau.  I had been up to Alaska for the past several years in a row, helping my mother and father. But we all knew that I needed to help more and more often, as by then, my mom, my dad, and I all knew that my mother had Alzheimer's Disease.

I knew, that this would be a long and challenging disease progress, and I knew that it was crucial that I keep my own strength and spirits up in order to deal with the challenges. So, with only a small amount of fabric and some basic sewing supplies, I made 6 little fabric postcards and mailed them from Douglas, Ak. to the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative

Once I began making and donating my little art quilts, a whole new outlook, a whole new creative world of a different kind of quilting opportunity was opened up. By New Years Day of 2010, I had created and started my own Liberated Quilting Challenge for AAQI and had coerced cajoled a few other liberated quilts into joining the group.

Each year, I have made at least 12 quilts as part of the Quilt a Month Challenge, and when I could make more, I made more. This year, 2013, the last year of AAQI, I poured it on and donated 26 quilts to AAQI meeting my personal goal for a total of 75.  And best of all...my little Liberated Quilting Challenge group has now contributed over 600 quilts to AAQI. For such a small group of quilters, with only about two dozen making the majority of quilts for my group, I am so thrilled and so proud of ALL of us, and so super, super proud of AAQI for all it has accomplished!

AAQI will have earned $1,000,000 by the end of this our final year with this wonderful, wonderful organization.

I am so thrilled, and so honored to have contributed quilt #15,000 to the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI)  because in my heart of hearts, I do feel like we have made a difference. We have funded Alzheimer's research grants at major institutions..over and over and they have made inroads in so many different and varying ways.

Please, continue to support us by buying quilts from our sale page, and bidding on our monthly auctions. This quilt...#15,000 will be available at auction at a later date. And of course, Ami Simms and her beautiful bevy of volunteers will be bringing thousands of quilts to the Houston International Quilt Festival in November!


See more about the quilt, AAQI, and how you can help fund Alzheimer's research at:

AAQI Update Blog: #15,000th Quilt

Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI)

 My AAQI Liberated Quilting Challenge


Michele Bilyeu blogs With Heart and Hands as she shares a quilting journey through her life in Salem, Oregon and Douglas, Alaska. Sewing, quilting, and wildcrafting, with small format art quilts, prayer flags, and comfort quilts for a variety of charitable programs. And best of all, sharing thousands of links to Free Quilt and Quilt Block Patterns and encouraging others to join in her Liberated Quilting Challenge and make and donate small art quilts to the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Help us change the world, one little quilt at a time!

AAQI Wall of Remembrance

Today, Sept. 21st, is World Alzheimer’s Day.

I think about the statistics that 5.4 million people have this disease. I wonder if I will be among those who face it any where from their late forties into their fifties and beyond. I think of what it will be like for our families to care for us, cry over us, wonder why it had to be this way ....and worry that I will be next.

If you have, or have had a family member or someone special in your own life who has suffered from Alzheimer's, please do the same. If you are on Facebook, please change your FB photo status and profile photo to theirs and include this statement in your status update:
 

I support the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative
at www.AlzQuilts.org

If you make a $5 donation to the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative before midnight tonight, post the invoice number generated by your donation to the AAQI FaceBook page at: http://www.facebook.com/AAQI.News *


AAQI will capture the image of your loved one from your profile picture and add it to the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative 2011 Virtual Wall of Remembrance where it will remain for one year. Names will not accompany photographs.

If you are not on FaceBook, or wish to make multiple donations to honor more than one person, email one photograph of each of your loved ones and the invoice number generated by your donation ($5 for each photo) to Diane at diane456@gmail.com. Pictures may be cropped and sized to fit the wall.

Alzheimer's has changed my own life forever. It has changed the life of my mother, my father, my four brothers and all of our families. It filled my father with the deepest sadness I have ever witnessed in another's eyes as he watched my mom change, and forget, and then begin to slip away. Before he died in August of 2010, he asked me to promise him that I would love and care for her for the rest of my life... because he knew that he would no longer be able to.

My brothers, my sister-in-laws, and I continue to care for her ...completely in her home on my childhood home on Douglas Island, Alaska. Right now, one brother and his wife live with her full-time and the rest of us come in and out..of the house, of the state of Alaska, of her life and our being able to help her. It is the hardest thing any of us has ever done. But because we love her, we do what we have to do until we find another way of getting outside help for her or until she passes from this disease and what it has done to both her brain, and her body.

Because I suffer from severe, long term chronic sleep deprivation and average less than 4 hours of sleep per night with an inability to almost never take naps...I live in a state very, very similar to the confusion, forgetfulness, and inability to remember what day it is, season it is, or what and how I need to do the things I want to. There are days when I am so exhausted I can't even remember the simplest of things, get lost driving down town, or forget the process of working the links, and passwords for all of my blogs and databases. How I may seem on the outside is very different from what I face on the inside.

I do not have Alzheimer's Disease, but I can guess at what it must feel like. And it is more than confusing, it is often terrifying to even consider.

If you don't have a family member with this disease, you are so blessed. Could you please go to the AAQI web page and donate even just $5 in honor of my mother? My family? Even me?
We need dollars to create funding for research. We need quilts to create sales and auctions for dollars to create funding. But most of all, we need people who care, care enough to donate $5 today and create those quilts, and even more so...the purchase of our little AAQI quilts... so that some day.... I will never have to write about this again.

Please help me to stop writing about Alzheimer's and AAQI ....and let that be because no one needs to write about it, anymore ...because a cure or a preventive treatment has been found.... and not because I have forgotten how.

Please make a $5 donation at the AAQI webpage. All it takes is a credit card, and a few moments of your time.

$5 Donation
$10 Donation

$15 Donation

And other news...
"Heartbreak to Hope" Exhibit Is Now In Laconia, NH



"Alzheimer's Illustrated: From Heartbreak to Hope" is an exhibit of quilts about Alzheimer's sponsored by the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI). Fifty-four small format art quilts (9" x 12") illustrate the disease from a variety of perspectives. They hang among 182 "Name Quilts," each 6 inches wide and 7 feet tall, which carry the names of more than 10,000 individuals who have/had Alzheimer's or a related dementia. The names of loved ones, written on fabric patches by family members and friends, honor the 5.4 million Americans in the United States struggling with Alzheimer's disease.


I am blessed to have two quilts traveling with this exhibit. Please come and check it out if it comes to an area near you.

Michele Bilyeu Creates With Heart and Hands: Alzheimer's Illustrated:From Heartbreak to Hope

https://www.with-heart-and-hands.com/p/alzheimers-illustrated-my-own.html

Michele Bilyeu of With Heart and Hands quilts for AAQI and runs the AAQI Liberated Challenge..won't you join in all of our fun...donate or buy a quilt, today!To see all of our quilts to date, check out our AAQI webpage at http://www.alzquilts.org/liqublliqume.htmlMichele Bilyeu of With Heart and Hands quilts for AAQI and runs the AAQI Liberated Challenge..won't you join in all of our fun...donate or buy a quilt, today!To see all of our quilts to date, check out our AAQI webpage at http://www.alzquilts.org/liqublliqume.html
Michele Bilyeu quilts for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) With Heart and Hands at www.with-heart-and-hands.com Join my friend-connect to receive my frequent updates on quilting, crafting,and updates for thousands and thousands of free patterns and tutorials.

Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative

$60,000 for the University of Michigan and Alzheimer's research.

That's just how much money AAQI was able to raise through the donation of our little art quilts and donate this year. If you remember, last year, Ami Simms and her dedicated band of volunteer assistants had made a previous grant of $30,000 to the same research facility with amazing results. AAQI was one of three grant donating organizations to fund UM researchers into a discovery which rocked the Alzheimer's research world.Now, we are doing it again..only with double the amount of funding!

As Ami said: " I've never been so happy to spend so much money."

And frankly, Ami..we've never been so grateful to be able donate our little art quilts so that this was possible!


As Ami says: And if you're keeping track, the acutal amount was $60, 160.00 It was made out to the University of Michigan for Dr. Mi Hee Lim and her team to continue work on small molecules that break up deposits of amyloid plaque in the brain. That's the substance that seems to cause cell death in Alzheimer's. In smaller chunks, the amyloid plaque can be removed from the brain. Maybe they can figure out how to keep it from clumping together in the first place.

AAQI volunteers hand delivered the check and, of course, brought along some quilts. Quilts from the first traveling show, name quilts created by quilters sewing together small purple patches that many of us wrote the names of loved ones on, and of course, some of our newer donations of Priority quilts.

This grant is by far the largest that the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative has been able to fund so far of the seven that have been distributed. And as Ami says..."Godspeed" to the researchers and the research. As someone who's own life has been forever changed by our own mother's Alzheimer's Disease, we know just how crucial research is..for us, for you, for the world with an aging population.

Thank you Ami, volunteers, quilt makers, and quilt buyers!

Now, ladies and gentlemen...start those machines. It's time to make some more quilts!!!!

Previous Links:
Quilters Finance New Alzheimer's Discovery
Unraveling Alzheimer’s: Simple small molecules could untangle complex disease
Liberated Quilting Challenge
Make and Donate a Priority Quilt to AAQI

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

Not an art quilter? How about wearing art quilt earrings and still support AAQI? See Ami wearing a pair in top photo ;)

Item# Ultralight-Earrings

$15.00

And while you're there, check out the AAQI Quilt Auction!
BID NOW!

And check out other great links about AAQI:

Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative Auction Page

www.benefitbidding.com/listings/categories/index.cfm?category...

Online quilt auction for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI),Raising Awareness & Funding Research Through Art.

Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative - Non-Profit Organization - Burton, MI ...

www.facebook.com/AAQI.News

Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative - Raising Awareness & Funding Research Through Art - Mission: Making a difference, one quilt at a time. - Description: Raising ...

The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative Update | Thread Your Needle For ...

aaqiupdate.wordpress.com/

In honor of International Quilt Day, March 17th, The Quilt Show, the web TV show hosted by Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims, will “open” all of its

Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative

www.alzheimersreadingroom.com/.../alzheimers-art-quilt-in...

by Bob DeMarco · More by Bob DeMarco Aug 3, 2011 – The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) is offering 20 quilts that were part of the "Alzheimer's: Forgetting Piece by Piece" exhibit in an online ...

Quilt to Remember

www.alzquilt.org/

BERNINA USA \ See It Share It \ FREE Downloads \ Other Cool Stuff!

www.berninausa.com/news_detail-n403-r68-i1896-sUS.html

Stitch the logo for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative, which offers quilter's a way to put their quilting talents to work to help raise funds for Alzheimer's research.

What is the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative?

millionairetips.hubpages.com › ... › Sewing and Sewing Patterns › Quilting

The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative was created by Ami Simms as a charity to raise awareness and fund research to find the cure for Alzheimer's disease.The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative ~ Pallimed: Arts and Humanities

arts.pallimed.org/2011/03/alzheimers-art-quilt-initiative.html

Mar 28, 2011 – The Art Quilt Initiative's has another project, Priority: Alzheimer's Quilts. They collect small 9" X 12" quilts donated to them and sell or auction the ...

Michele Bilyeu Quilts With Heart and Hands for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Join in my Liberated Quilting Challenge...let's all liberate ourselves from this horrible disease!

Michele is on Facebook and posts about AAQI, regularly.

Sold! AAQI Quiilt #15,000

 
And The Greatest Of These Is Love  is my 75th and final small format art quilt that I created and donated to the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI)


The  AAQI August Auction ran from August 1-10th and ended last night at 10 pm Central time. I am so delighted to report that my quilt was purchased by Bill Volkening! It was a down to the final minutes kind of bidding and I loved watching it play out during the final seconds.

Bill is an amazing quilt collector who oversees the Volkening Collection and is a self published author, speaker, writer, and quilt expert.  With many traveling collections on display, literally all over the world, Bill had previously purchased my small format art quilt  Quilt #9648 - Changing the World and published it, and his other AAQI quilts, in a book with that same title. I dearly loved that little quilt, but oh how I have loved this one! It is so filled up with love, that I'm sure Bill will be able to feel it every time he looks at it!

Congratulations, Bill Volkening! and thank you so very much for your support of AAQI and its quilters!!!

Changing the World and helping find better treatments, or better yet...a cure!...for Alzheimer's Disease has long been a focus in my quilting and quilt donating life. I have 13 family members who have suffered from either Alzheimer's or related dementias. And the impact on my family's lives has been intense and challenging.

I began making and donating quilts for AAQI in 2007. I was up in Alaska, caring for my mom and dad in our childhood home on Douglas Island, near Juneau in Southeast Alaska. I had very little fabric, and almost no sewing supplies, but I managed to make and donate 6 small postcards from what I did have and got them mailed in, on at a time to AAQI. I went on to make an donate as many quilts as I could, over the next 6 years, while still traveling to Alaska (many times a year) to help my dad as he did his very best to take care of my mom. Bit by bit, that became more and more challenging.

Alzheimer's is an insidious, and damaging disease. It takes over the body, as well as the brain, and changes not only one's memory, but physical abilities and personality, as well. It completely robs its victims, and their family members of their loved ones and creates lives that are often chaotic and impossibly challenging as we all struggle to maintain our own lives while taking care of those we love so dearly.

If you live long enough with this horrible, horrible disease, you will be unable to walk, to talk, to sit up, or even to remember to chew or to swallow. And we continue to take care of my mom, by ourselves, in her own home,  due to the severe shortage of social services in our area. And to add insult to injury. My mother who lays without being able to move, who is blind, diabetic, and in her 8th year of Alzheimer's Disease being completely cared for now by her family, did not qualify for hospice care of any kind.

That is the desperation families face with this disease in areas with limited funding or services. It is a kind of hard that no one can imagine until you are there, doing the actual work of care giving and it is very, very challenging.

On January 1, 2010, I started the AAQI Liberated Quilting Challenge urging other online quilters to make and donate quilts to AAQI to earn research funding, as well.

Little did I realize, that just one week later, I would slip and fall while getting my father's newspaper in Alaska, and ended up with a  broken wrist that was also dislocated in three places! And here, I had just started my AAQI Challenge group and now could only type with one finger, not to mention sewing with one hand and a 'pushing' pencil in my mouth! And I had to take care of my mom, my dad, cook, clean, do laundry, and give pills and insulin shots.  Somehow, I am a determined lady and did it ..but now, with my own challenges!

I had surgery and sporting my new implant from my alien encounters,   I kept on taking care of my mom until I was ready to head back to Oregon once again. I was home for just three days when my I got news that my dad had two heart attacks, so back to Alaska to help out - broken arm and all.

In spite of all of that, I kept care taking, kept typing with one finger urging others to sew and to donate, and now 6 years of AAQI donations later.....my last and final quilt before AAQI quilt registration ended on August 1st  has just added another $105 towards Alzheimer's Disease research funding!

With a winning bid by Bill Volkening, this quilt will now be part of the "Volkening Collection" and reside with the other small format art quilts that he has purchased from sales and auctions at the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) his small but wonderful collection of Alzheimer's Art Quilts.

And my  AAQI Liberated Quilting Challenge group?

My small group of dedicated quilters has now made and donated 684 quilts with more still being added in, and earned a LOT of money for Alzheimer's research funding!!!  All of these in just 2.5 years!

I am thrilled that a small group of quilters, and their quilt buyers, have indeed, changed the world, each of us in our own ways. We've shown others the degree of our commitment to our family members who have suffered from Alzheimer's Disease and its related dementias, our love of quilting and quilt collecting, and our steadfast determination to keep on quilting no matter what the challenges in the rest of our lives!

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

Please check out my other quilts for sale and help me earn additional money for research funding!

Previous links of connection:

Wonkyworld

"And The Greatest Of These Is Love"

Prayers Flags from Mungpoo

Changing the World: Quilts from the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative
www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/3498527Book title: Changing the World: Quilts from the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative, By: The Volckening Collection, Category: Uncategorized, Book - Aug 26, 2012 – Book title: Changing the World: Quilts from the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative, By: The Volckening Collection, Category: Uncategorized, Book


Wonkyworld: "Changing the World" Exhibit Now on Display

Michele Bilyeu blogs With Heart and Hands as she shares a quilting journey through her life in Salem, Oregon and Douglas, Alaska. Sewing, quilting, and wildcrafting, with small format art quilts, prayer flags, and comfort quilts for a variety of charitable programs. And best of all, sharing thousands of links to Free Quilt and Quilt Block Patterns and encouraging others to join in her Liberated Quilting Challenge and make and donate small art quilts to the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Help us change the world, one little quilt at a time!

Far, Far, Away and the AAQI

Some of the world's mystics have described an alternate reality...one of quantum physics twelve parallel universes, perhaps,....where every thing appears to exist in shades or pink or purple. I was fascinated to read about this, as I often have very unusual dreams and have had similar experiences...in one of my dreams, I visited just such a pink and purple universe.

When I wake up from a really unusual dream, I always wonder what could it mean symbolically .....or what my subconscious might be trying to tell me...so I love dream symbolism and all of the mystical elements involved in psychology and psychotherapy. I am one of those people that others are always telling their own dreams to, sensing perhaps that I am a dreamer, too.

So, when I look at my sweet mama's face as she gazes off into her unseen world, and I see a look of separation from this world, and an awareness of something, and someplace else, I cannot help but wonder what does go on, if anything, in the mind of a person with Alzheimer's.

When I see such a look on her face, I have asked her 'where' she is...and she often tells me "I don't know...but far, far, away..."

Now, what can one do with such a dream, and such a comment? Make an art quilt and donate it to the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative, of course! And it does make one wonder....does being fanciful and having a mystical imagination veer too far away from the way a mind creates another reality in Alzheimer's? Oh, I'm not sure I want to travel there...not just yet, anyway!!

My own unusual dreams and my visions of a pink and purple mystical universe is probably enough of a challenge for me in this world, as it is!

The January Quilt Auction for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative has begun and my mystical little art quilt is now up for bidding! Travel other worlds the safe way...at home, in your own world, by bidding on a quilt ;)

And please do check out the For Sale page. There are so many truly, truly lovely quilts there and they all are looking for a good home!

Above:
My donated quilt "Far, Far, Away: and details about the bidding

Update:
This quilt just sold at the February AAQI auction for $130.
Many blessings and thanks to its wonderful buyer "fed1952"!

Links:

Check out my 5 star review of ALZHEIMER'S ART QUILT INITIATIVE in its entirity:

"I am so very proud that I am able to donate art quilts to this wonderful organization and even prouder when others hear my story and the stories of others just like me, and bid on, or buy quilts from AAQI."~Michele Bilyeu

Why I support AAQI, only up the number to 15:
From the Heart of a Quilter
Make a Priority Quilt for AAQI

AAQI Liberated Quilting Challenge
Join me, try something new (liberate yourself!) and make:
9"x 12"quilts or 4" x6" postcards for donation...my group just gives your quilt (you'd hopefully make anyway) another format to show it off on another page at AAQI ;)

follow the AAQI quilt auction on TwitterLiberated 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.

Winning bid: $130
Michele Bilyeu quilts for AAQI..the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative. Won't you please join us? :)

Art Quilters AT AAQI Finance New Alzheimer’s Discovery!

Our AAQI Quilters Have Financed a New Alzheimer’s Discovery! I have just learned from Ami Simms that the research financed by AAQI and carried out by Dr. Mi Hee Lim and her colleagues at the University of Michigan has yielded wonderfully positive results!

Their research has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. Thousands of web pages all over the world are now carrying this story and a mention of our funding is showing up in them, over and over!

Imagine seeing our own Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative listed right next to the National Institutes of Health on one of the many thousands of web sites carrying this story on the latest Alzheimer's discovery!

In March of this year, the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative awarded a $30,000 grant to the University of Michigan for research under the direction of assistant professor Dr. Mi Hee Lim for research she has been doing with lab members Jung-Suk Choi and Joseph Braymer regarding molecular tools that both grab metal ions and interact with amyloid-beta tangles in Alzheimer's victims brains.

AAQI has now awarded six grants since we began making, donating, and raising research monies with quilts and this was the third of those six awarded so far. Ami and her support team not only brought the check for our earned research monies but she also brought quilts to show the researchers, as well. Just picture that amazing scene.....Ami and her support staff showing our quilts as they described how we make them, donate them, and auction them off to raise the money for the check that Ami then handed over to them! What a wonderful and amazing thing!

Because of our funding, Dr Lim and her team were able to create new molecular tools that show promise for cleansing the brain of amyloid plaques. These plaques, a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease, are clumps of misfolded proteins thought to cause cell death leading to devastating memory loss and cognitive decline. Finding ways to cross through the blood brain barrier is something I have been reading about for years and here this team has worked out a means and a method that might significantly alter Alzheimer's research from now on!

The researchers went on to show that in solutions with or without living cells, the molecules were able to regulate copper-induced amyloid-beta aggregation, not only disrupting the formation of clumps, but also breaking up clumps that already had formed.

This is just one amazing step towards a possible cure, but it's a promising one!

As someone who has a very great chance of getting Alzheimer's myself...with 15 immediate family members having had or my mother now currently having this horrible disease....everything that AAQI does, every word that Ami Simms writes or says in a press release means the world to me and I have shared that with her repeatedly. She and all of the researchers and all who care and take that caring and do something positive with it...they are my heroes.

If any one of you, who loved your own mother, your own father, your aunts or yours uncles, your husbands, or sisters or brothers, had to watch what happens to them...first their memory, then their body...limb by limb, organ by organ, until they no longer have control over anything anymore...trust me, you would be as passionate as I am.

Never underestimate the power of quilts, quilters, and quilting! We are making a difference!

5211 - Mama's Brain Got Tangles...but Mama's Still Inside

One of the 11 art quilts that I made and donated to AAQI in 2010 and 1 of 53 small quilts that will be traveling the country as part of the AAQI 2011 Traveling Exhibit of larger 'name' quilts.
Alzheimer's Illustrated: From Heartbreak to Hope

I support the Alzheimer's Art Quilts Initiative
and moderate the AAQI Liberated Quilters Challenge
Please help me by joining in and making small 4" x 6" or 9" x 12" art quilts for this cause.

Link to this story:
Quilters Finance New Alzheimer's Discovery


Google:
Unraveling Alzheimer’s: Simple small molecules could untangle complex disease
Quilters Finance New Alzheimer’s Discovery

Ongoing Liberated Quilting Challenge: new quilts added in

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.

Michele Bilyeu quilts for AAQI..the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative. Won't you please join us? :)
Michele Bilyeu on Facebook

Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative: AAQI August Auction

The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Association August Auction is now open with some unique quilts this month and every month from the first day to the tenth. For my Liberated Quilting Challenge latest quilts check out my posts here: AAQI Liberated Challenge. To join in our fun go to our AAQI web page here: AAQI Liberated Quilters Group Challenge.

For this post (previously dated), the art quilt above is discussed here:

While this August 2010 quilt auction has broken all first day bidding records with $1,425 in less than 12 hours! The auction continues until 10pm EDT, August 10th but additional auctions are held from the 1st to the 10th of each and every month.

As special features, check out this beautiful 5,000th quilt (shown above) created by Marlene Woodfield. You can also find a picnic quilt designed by the Vera Bradley Design Team complete with a matching tote bag for sale, and a Debbie Mumm quilt, as well!

Bid early, and bid well, each and every month. Then keep the ball rolling by continuing to bid on some truly lovely quilts. Check them all out and see if yours is up on the auction block this month, or buy one for a gift for yourself, or for a friend.

Support Ami Simm's and her dedicated band of volunteers as we try to fund research with the hope of finding a cure for this devastating disease!

Shown above:
Spring Time on the Farm
Marlene Woodfield
Width: 12" Length: 9"
Materials/Techniques: Cotton fabrics, fused fabric, inked, beaded, handpainted sky, heavily quilted, piped, traditionally bound.

Home page for AAQI:
The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI)

Alzheimer's Art Quil (AAQIUpdate) on Twitter

You +1'd this publicly. Undo

The auction is over, but our work never stops at the AAQI. ... This quilt earned $85 for the AAQI. Thanks, Marlene and Quilt Buyer! ...
twitter.com/aaqiupdate - Cached

My own personal links: My own very personal journey with Alzheimer's, and my commitment to AAQI...only change the number of family members who have or have had Alzheimer's and related dementias to 15 as you read this:
From the Heart of a Quilter
My own quilts and posts on the AAQI:
With Heart and Hands: Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative
Join me and my Liberated Quilting Challenge
My ongoing blog: With Heart and Hands

October 2010 Auction:
I have a quilt at auction:
5625 - The Butterfly Upon the Sky
See the quilts/bid now!

I Want To Go Home: For the AAQI

6598 – I Want to Go Home
(sold/$75 donation to AAQI)
 

Michele Bilyeu
Salem Oregon/Douglas Alaska
Width: 12" Length: 9"
Materials/Techniques: Original design with free cut and fused cottons, raw edge appliqué, thread painting and beadwork.
Artist Statement: My mother would wake up every morning and go to sleep every night in our Alaskan childhood home that she had lived in for almost 60 years. She would always say the same thing:

"I want to go home."

 When we told her "This is your home!”

 She would always say "It sure doesn't look like my home! Everything is all crazy and mixed up!" 

 She is still being cared for at home and it is still crazy and mixed up. Once the chaos of Alzheimer's enters your home, nothing is ever the same again.

Michele Bilyeu
Dedication: In memory of the 14 members of my family who have already passed with Alzheimer's and related dementias, and in honor of my mother who still does her best...each and every day, in her crazy and mixed up world..
This quilt has Fast Finish Triangles.

This quilt earned $75 for AAQI.

Note from Michele:
It's always delightful to learn that someone has purchased one of my AAQI quilts before it ever made it to the web page or auction block.

I am honored and delighted that it earned $75 for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative....and never more so than when I am actually up in Douglas, Alaska actively caring for my mom with her advanced Alzheimer's.

This little story quilt depicts my childhood island home in Alaska... with its mountains, birds, valleys, and our lovely Sandy Beach where we actually play in the sand, and find starfish and seashells. When our Taku winds blow, our houses sway, our rooftops can even fly off. It gives others the chance to know what our home feels like inside and out..... without or without any wind.

Alzheimer's disease tears apart the fabric of so many lives and stretches and bends us all to our limits of sanity. Our respite come from contact with nature and the quiet places within that give us deep solace. We learn to bend with the winds of time and change and learn that we are all part of a greater cycle.

I am 'home' with my mother no matter where I am, she is, or where she 'thinks' she is. And it's always so very good to truly be home.

Links:
See our newest AAQI Liberated Challenge quilt additions
See all of our Liberated Challenge Quilts to date on their own AAQI webpage
Why I quilt for AAQI
Why I Started the AAQI: Liberated Quilting Challenge

Make A PRIORITY: ALZHEIMER'S QUILT Donation
Traveling Exhibit Premiers
Youtube Exhibit Video

Michele Bilyeu quilts for AAQI..the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative. Won't you please join us? :)

Quilter's Earrings From the AAQI

AAQI logo earrings and many more now available for sale with all proceeds to Alzheimer's research funding!

Go to the AAQI site to order any of these or many other super cute, super lightweight earrings!

Earring replicas (of the fabulous designer 'Championship' quilts now on auction

Bid on the masterpiece quilts themselves: http://bit.ly/AAQI-Auction...

See how much the bids for the quilts are up to now...no obligation to bid!

or Root for your favorite championship player/creator of these fabulous quilts!

Or check out/ buy a pair of replica earrings made from the auction quilt designs:

Do you make AAQI quilts? Or just want to support AAQI; wear an AAQI Logo Lapel Pint 10 days, too. You may not be able to afford bidding on one of their masterpiece quilts, which inspired the earrings above, but

Others to check out using other quilt blocks not from these auction quilts:

Earrings

Michele Bilyeu quilts for AAQI..the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative. Won't you please join us? :)

Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative Auction

The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative June auction has begun and I am so delighted to have another one of my quilts in this month's group of selections. This one is representative of what I like to call "Healing Hearts" quilts....filled with the power and the testament of the spiritual energies of love in action....the very symbolism of my own heart and hands and all that means to me.

Please visit the AAQI June Auction website and see all of the other lovely quilts available this month. Bids open at $40 and go up in small increments thereafter. Now, it is possible to state your highest offer and have an auto bid up to that point. And please, please, remember...you are not just buying a little art quilt donated by all of us..you are also making a charitable donation with all profits going to fund Alzheimer's research! And if you think that doesn't make a difference...read here about how one of our $30,000 grants last year made a huge impact in the research on this dreadful disease.

Bids are open today, June 1st and the auction runs until June 10th when it ends at 10:00 p.m Thank you for just checking out our auction, but an extra big thank you for considering a bid or purchase!


PLUS check out all of the AAQI Quilts for Sale Now...by one for yourself, for a friend, to cheer someone up, any occasion or just for the fun of it!!!


Quilt #6761 - Sparks of Heavenly Fire Michele Bilyeu

Salem OR USA

Width: 12" Length: 9"
Materials/Techniques: Cotton fabrics, inkjet printing, thread painting, and free motion quilting.
Artist Statement: Each of us must face many challenges in our lifetime. The ability to go through those challenges is often catalyzed by a deep inner strength we didn't realize we possessed. It is this 'spark of heavenly fire' that both lights the path ahead and empowers us to blaze forward with faith, perseverance, and fortitude.

Dedication: For anyone and everyone who has faced life's challenges and learned more about themselves and their inner strength in that process.

Links:

The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI)

Make A PRIORITY: ALZHEIMER'S QUILT Donation
Why I Quilt for AAQI
Why I Started the AAQI: Liberated Quilting Challenge
See all of our Liberated Challenge Quilts to date
Art Quilters Finance New Alzheimer’s Discovery!
Traveling Exhibit Premiers
Youtube Exhibit Video

Quilt Auction Look At All The Quilts Quilts For Sale MAKE A DONATION QUILT Priority ...	Quilt-A-Month Club AAQI Update Blog Show Me The Money 1000 Promise

Get the latest news about the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative: AAQI BLOG!

For more frequent news follow the AAQI on FaceBook and Twitter.

Michele Bilyeu quilts for AAQI..the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative. Won't you please join us? :)

AAQI and the $805 Quilt

I received the most thought provoking comments and emails from so many quilters after my previous blog post on: When is an Art Quilt No Longer a Quilt?

It just seemed so perfect to mention this quilt and consider that both its donation and purchase was more than just about how much money it went for .....especially considering its tiny size....but how much the creation, donation, and amount of money it raised truly represents.

So, I am sharing a letter I received from Ami Simms about the donation, sale, and meaning behind this tiny little quilt!

"Linda Woodard of Marion, Illinois, raised $805 for the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) with her donated 8.75 inches by 10 inches quilt which sold during the charity's October auction.

The AAQI holds online auctions during the first ten days of every month. Woodard's quilt, Making Waves in the Fight Against Alzheimer’s, sets a new AAQI record for Priority: Alzheimer's Quilt sales, surpassing Sue Nickels' quilt, This Bud's For You, which sold for $350 in 2006.

"I am in shock—a good shock. How exciting!" said Woodard after the auction closed." She continued, "I loved making the quilt and grew very attached to it. I know the person who purchased it will love it too. I am so pleased that my quilt raised so much for Alzheimer's research."

Woodard's quilt was created as part of a challenge issued by the Shawnee Quilters of Southern Illinois. The group has supported the AAQI for several years through the AAQI's Priority: Alzheimer's Quilts project. More than 8,500 quilts (none larger than 9" x 12") have been donated by quilt guilds and individual quilters since 2006 as quilters make finding a cure for Alzheimer's a priority in their lives.

The AAQI's November auction (November 1-10) in honor of National Alzheimer's Awareness Month features quilts by Alex Anderson, Hollis Chatelain, John Flynn, Becky Goldsmith, Renae Haddadin, Sue Nickels, Caryl Bryer Fallert, Pat Holly, Libby Lehman, Judy Mathieson, Mary Sorensen, and Ricky Tims as they compete in the "Stanley Cup Quilt-Off."

The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (www.alzquilts.org) is a national, grassroots charity whose mission is to raise awareness and fund research. It auctions and sells donated quilts through the Priority: Alzheimer's Quilt project and sponsors a touring exhibit of quilts about Alzheimer's called "Alzheimer's Illustrated: From Heartbreak to Hope." The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative has raised more than $591,000 since January 2006."

Article courtesy of Ami Simms, Quilter, Teacher, Author, Blogger

Founder and  Executive Director, Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative
More than $591,000 raised for Alzheimer's research since January 2006. Help us make a difference...one quilt at a time.

Michele Bilyeu quilts for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) With Heart and Hands at www.with-heart-and-hands.com Join my friend-connect to receive my frequent updates on quilting, crafting,and updates for thousands and thousands of free patterns and tutorials.