Fidget Quilts for Alzheimer's Patients

A "Fidget, Fiddle, or Busy" Quilt or Activity Blanket  is a small lap quilt, mat or blanket that provides sensory and tactile stimulation for the restless or "fidgety" hands of someone with Alzheimer's or related Dementias. 

If you are not a a quilter, these can easily be made with a variety of scrap fabrics simply sewn together in any random pattern and simply quilted with tied crochet cotton, or machine sewn straight line stitching around the blocks. But they can also be made as lap sized blankets using fleece or other fabrics not needing to be quilted down with tactile elements attached on top.

Fidget Quilts or Blankets provide sensory or tactile stimulation through the use of fabric choices, colors, value of colors next to one another, textures, and the use of accents or simple accessories such as pockets, laces, trims,  appliques, buttons, secured beads, ribbons, braids etc.

Ideas and suggestions are shared through a variety of photos of all kinds of fidget quilts, blankets, mats, aprons, or even bags that I or others have made.

For basic directions, suggested sizes, and lots and lots of ideas and inspiration, please check out my primary blog where I post about the making of these wonderful little quilts, my history with my family's journey and my care giving for Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia and the work that I did for AAQI ..the Alzheimer's Art Quilting Initiative ..AAQI...from 2006 through its closure in 2013. As a proud member of this organization and the founder of my own small group..the Liberated Challenge Quilters, we raised many thousands of dollars towards the founder Ami Simm's final total of ONE MILLION DOLLARS towards Alzheimer's research.

 It was long, hard work for many of the primary group members but a labor of art, quilting, and love as well. Once our goal was reached, each of us went back to our own lives whether that was blogging about our journeys, caring for loved ones, or continuing to make quilts for Alzheimer's patients, as I have done.

So, I began this new journey of making small fidget quilts for donation to various organizations. They are also for sale at a variety of places for those that do not sew. They are all made with love and love and prayer are infused with every stitch but it takes time and supplies to create them so it is not possible for one person to just make them for entire nursing homes as I have been asked to do and had to turn down.

Instead I teach and encourage others to make them as I continue to make what I can, when I can. And you can too!!!

Here is the link to my huge post with many, many photos of fidget, fiddle, sensory, tag quilts, aprons, mats, bags, and pillows..all are wonderful  tactile busy quilts and other items for your loved ones or for donation.

Making Fidget Quilts for Alzheimer's Patients: Free Tutorials and Ideas 

Alzheimer's Awareness Quilting Inspiration: Make a Fidget Quilt!

Now, that the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative is a beautiful memory of thousands of quilters, multiple thousands of small format art quilts, and a wonderful founder, president, and inspirational leader Ami Simms, it's time to put this blog back to work!

So, I am now using this blog as my Alzheimer's Awareness Inspirational Quilting backup blog for my own ongoing work for raising Alzheimer's Awareness and quilting, teaching, and hopefully inspiring others, as I have with my original donation of lap quilts for those in care homes, to creating small format art quilts for donation to Ami Simm's "Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative" and now by creating, teaching, donating, and selling my Fidget Quilt Projects to spread awareness and my caring energies of 'heart and hands' to others.

  With Heart and Hands

All original posts are on my own personal and primary blog. And as it nears 8 million reader views, it is finally hitting me that in my own little way, not a big, huge wonderful way like Ami, but my own simple Michele Bilyeu way, I am making a difference.

Fidget Quilts for Alzheimer's and Related Dementia 

Making Fidget Quilts ,Blankets, Mats, Aprons, Bags:

 Updated 2016 

Alzheimer's Fidgeting and Mojo Uprising

My Fidget Quilts blog posts have earned me a spot at the top of the search engines and I am being told that I have inspired church groups, girl scout and other civic minded community groups, nursing homes, etc. to create these small lap quilts for others.

Nothing could please me more than to know that somehow all of this hard, hard work with my blogs and blogging has made a difference.

 

 

Thank you for coming to visit, for reading, and for going back into your own sewing rooms, homes, and communities to do good!!!

 

Fidget Quilts for Alzheimer's and Related Dementia 

Making Fidget Quilts ,Blankets, Mats, Aprons, Bags:

 Updated 2016 

Alzheimer's Fidgeting and Mojo Uprising

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

Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI)

My Quilts Raised $4,516.88  for Alzheimer's Disease Research Funding! 

And while AAQI has now reached its goal and is no longer operating as it once was, all of us who created and donated small format art quilts to this wonderful organization continue to be so proud of Ami Simms, her wonderful Board of Directors, and each of us who worked so hard to earn monies for this important cause. 

If you want to make and donate a lap or bed quilt..consider your local care homes, memory centers or a local hospital or hospice program. Funds may be donated to the any of our wonderful national Alzheimer's organizations.

 AAQI: Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative 2006-2013 

Bilyeu, Michele (75/75)

Michele Bilyeu
Salem, OR   USA
(Douglas, AK)

Statement: As a member of the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative, I was asked by Ami Simms to send a 2" x 6" strip of purple fabric with the name of someone I loved on the back. The name of someone who has, or has had, Alzheimer's Disease, or a related dementia. As I began to write their names on the back, it was like I could hear an honorary roll call being read out loud with each and every name. At first I had a lump in my throat, and then a pain in my heart and suddenly I began to feel tears as they streamed down my face.

Nine names, nine purple strips, nine lives touched and destroyed by the hurricane force of this horrible disease. Nine people in my family alone, in my memory, in my own relating generation, in my DNA, in my own heart. Since that day, six more names have been added to that fate-filled list, including my own mother who now has advanced Alzheimer's, and my father who just passed away with his own early dementia. Now, there are not nine, but 15 members of my immediate family whose purple ribbons are waving in the ribbons of love in my heart.. and out of that 15....only my mother was still alive, and still facing the challenges of a changed, and ravaged life when I wrote this in 2010) she died on September 8, 2013. She had just had her 88th birthday one week before and was just beginning her 9th year with Alzheimer's.

And just as these purple banners wave across the hearts of all of those who view the "Alzheimer's Forgetting Piece by Piece" quilts, and waved in the "From Heartbreak to Hope" traveling exhibit in 2011, 2012, and 2013, , they wave, too, in all of our lives. My life and the life of my family has been forever changed, and I am so grateful to have this wonderful organization supporting research into Alzheimer's. AAQI has given me the gift of knowing I can make a difference...in my life, and in the lives of all who face the challenges of Alzheimer's Disease.

 The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) 
has officially ended its amazing quilting journey towards raising $1,000,000 for Alzheimer's Research funding. We surpassed all expectations that any of us might have had with the realizations of just how amazing it was that our founder Ami Simms could bring thousands of quilters from all walks of life, all stages of connection with Alzheimer's Disease or a related dementia.

Quilters banded together in quilt guilds, in living rooms, and over the Internet and blogosphere and we did it! We made and donated small format art quilts that were barely larger than a piece of paper and raised well over one million dollars with their sales!

The AAQI website will be shut down and just become a memory to many of us, but we will be so very blessed to even be able to have that memory. May the research we have funded lead to discoveries that will eventually find better treatments or even a cure!

 
My own donated and now, sold out, quilts were as shown below. And might I also mention, that in January of 2010, I formed The (AAQI) Liberated Challenge group, and asked other quilts to join in this cause. About 36 quilters said 'yes' and about 30 of us ended up making and donating enough quilts to total well over 600 quilts for this cause. 

Michele Bilyeu-Total Raised for Alzheimer's Disease: $4,516.88

1954 -The Heartbreak of Alzheimer's ($30)	1955 - For Better, For Worse ($30)	1956 - What Dreams May Come ($30)
1957 - You Don't Bring Me Flowers ($30)	1958 - Each And Every Day Is A Gift ($30)	1959 - Love Is All There Is ($35)
4946 - Liberated Rose ($45)	4947 - Transitioning Between the Polarities ($80)	4948 - Alzheimer's: It's More Than Black and White ($40)
5211 - Mama's Brain Got Tangles...but Mama's Still Inside ($70.00)	5625 - The Butterfly Upon the Sky ($75)	5626 - The Parasol is the Umbrella's Daughter ($75)
5969 - Fish Tales ($79.59)	5970 - Pickled Mushrooms ($40)	6077 - Within the Depths ($80)
6078 - Far, Far, Away ($130)	6165 - Twilight Dreams ($60)	6399 - The Alzheimer's Prayer ($105.00)
6439 – Fly Away Home ($80)	6598 – I Want to Go Home ($75)	6761 - Sparks of Heavenly Fire ($165)
6956 – The Alzheimer’s Prayer ($87.16)	7148 – Bah Humbug! ($50.46)	7322 – Topsy Turvy ($75)
7656 – Remembering Laurel ($50)	7820 – Laurel Points the Way ($45.88)	8227 – Rainbow Snout ($59.64)
8228 – With You All the Way ($64.23)	8500 – Froggie Went A Courtin’ ($50.81)	8501 – A Heart Filled With Hope and Love ($85)
8672 - Rock On ($55)	8673 - Country Cowgirl at Heart ($41.57)	8674 - Come and Play ($41.57)
8738 - The Power of Transition ($55)	8953 - Don't Worry, Spiders ($75.00)	8954 - Let Me Entertain You ($70.00)
9125 - Change and Transition ($175)	9400 - A Dream Within A Dream ($75.00)	9648 - Changing the World ($90)
9992 - Tied Together By Love ($55)	10,006 - One World, One Shared Challenge ($50.81)	10,281 - Longing For Freedom ($64.67)
10,680 - Ethereal ($55.43)	11,086 - Song of the Hills ($75.00)	11,372 - At Peace In My Garden ($50.00)
11,682 - The Shirt Off Their Backs ($55.43)	11,819 - Bright Heart of Many Blessings ($65.00)	12,230 - Well, Hello Kitty! ($60.00)
12,614 - Imperfectly Perfect in Every Way! ($73.90)	12,976 - Attic Window Posy ($65.00)	13,161 - East Meets West ($50.00)
13,398 - In The Flow ($75.00)	13,704 - I Will Remember You ($50.00)	13,705 - Dreaming of Freedom ($41.57)
13,706 - A Walk on the Wild Side ($46.19)	13,837 - Strength and Love ($69.28)	13,838 - Asian Elegance ($60.00)
13,841 - Beauty Shared Is Love Multiplied ($55.43)	13,889 - Wild, Wacky and Wonderful ($46.19)	13,890 - We Are All In This Together ($50.00)
13,891 - When The Heart Grieves ($25.00)	14,232 - Laurel's Colorful Cats ($45.00)	14,602 - The Senility Prayer ($46.19)
14,850 - Thank You, Lord, For Family ($40.00)	14,851 - Fan Dance ($60.05)	14,853 - Our Family ($41.57)
14,929 - Jennie's Roses ($46.19)	14,930 - Our Family: A Prayer for All of Us ($50.81)	14,931 - Blessings of Faith ($17.50)
14,932 - Blessings of Hope ($15.75)	14,933 - Blessings of Charity ($36.95)	14,934 - Blessings of Love ($26.25)
14,998 - Blessings Of The Messenger ($50.81)	14,999 - Hope Springs Eternal ($65.00)	15,000 - And The Greatest Of These Is Love ($105.00)

 The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative and Alzheimer's Disease: My Own Heartbreak to Hope



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!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!