Alzheimer's Awareness Quilting Inspiration: Auction

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Monday

Tied Together by Love...We are Changing the World!

I am so delighted that I have now earned $145 more for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) and Alzheimer's Disease research..thank you so much to my two newest quilt buyers!

9992 - Tied Together By Love (SALE PENDING)

Michele Bilyeu

Salem, OR USA

Width: 8.25" Length: 11.25"

Designer: Original design

Materials/Techniques: Needlepoint panel of Aida cloth and embroidery floss, silk necktie opened up and used as the border, with vintage buttons for trim.

Artist Statement: I created this little needlepoint art quilt, with its sampler like neckties and buttons, in memory of a dear friend's husband who had just passed away suddenly after a short illness. His life ended with the sudden and severe challenges of dementia. After his passing, my friend gave me some of her husband's neckties to use as the border, and I remember telling her then, that all of us are 'tied together by love."

Dedication: In memory of Clay and all those whose families face the challenges of illness complicated by Alzheimer's or a related dementia. May we always remember that we are truly connected by our love for one another, as well as by our shared challenges. Our lives are a sampler of both good times and bad times, but the love and the caring for one another tie us all together with love.

9992 - Tied Together By Love just sold for $55.00 to a very dear lady in Honolulu, Hawaii...Margie.. who knows its story and has the heart connection of kinship from being a sister to my dear friend, Pat, whose husband, Clay passed away this January. After his passing, Pat asked me if I could use any of Clay's ties in my quilting and of course, I said an emphatic 'yes!'

It helps all of us when we can feel that one huge loss can still somehow lead to different blessings and gains. And while there is no comparison, it is still a solace to know that others live on in our memories from all they have left behind. And greatest of all of these is love.

My second sale, was this lovely art quilt that was part of the AAQI June Auction. The auction ran from June 1-10th.

Quilt #9648 - Changing the World

Michele Bilyeu
Salem, OR USA

Width: 12" Length: 9"

Designer: Original design

Materials/Techniques: Batik cottons, raw edge applique, free motion quilting, inkjet printing, Shiva paint sticks, and beads.

Artist Statement: Margaret Mead wrote, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." This is what we, as quilters, do with our donation of art quilts to AAQI, and it is what the quilt buyers do with their purchases. We are seeking to change the world of Alzheimer's...one little quilt at a time.

Dedication: For all of us who seek change in the world...the doers, the movers, and the shakers...and the quilt lovers who seek to do all three....by donating or purchasing AAQI quilts.

This quilt has Fast Finish Triangles.

Quilt #9648 - Changing the World sold at the AAQI June Auction for a winning bid of $90! I thank the quilt buyer/art and quilting arts patron so very, very much for his bid. So thank you very, very much to Bill Volkening...aka the amazing Willy Wonky Quilts . I asked for someone to up the ante on facebook and he did. Made my heart soar. Thank you so much!!! What an appropriate quilt loving and appreciating home for this dear little quilt of mine!

Thank you for supporting my art quilting and for supporting Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) You are, indeed, helping us to change the world, one little quilt at a time!

AAQI Twitter Updates

Thanks for all you do to help raise $$ for Alzheimer's research, Michele! http://t.co/3oncFHas about 11 hours ago

Ahhh, I love that! Thank you :)

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!

AAQI Quilt Auction

Quilt #9648 - Changing the World

The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative June Auction is in full swing! As I was making this small (9" x 12") format art quilt for AAQI I knew it was my "sudden, and for sure" favorite new quilt.

Now I love ALL of the quilts that I make and donate, and each and every single one I love enough to want to keep, trust me. And I've said that and felt that before, and no doubt I'll do it again. But I just really love this one! And if you could see it in real life, and not from a scanned or photographed image..you would too!

Perhaps it was the beautiful fabric that I started out with...it's hard to beat a really good hand dyed batik, then it might have been all of the added surface design like the metallic paintsticks , crayons, thread painting here and there and the other elements like the beads that were individually painted in Africa, or perhaps it was really just the Margaret Mead quotation:

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

That's the basic message of AAQI and all that Ami Simms started and all that she and so many other volunteers help her do, today. It is why we all quilt, and why we all donate money, and why we all, if we can, purchase the quilts and hang them proudly on our walls in our studios, family rooms, and even under kitchen cupboards for instant wall art, anywhere and everywhere.

Those of us who have a personal connection through our own care giving experiences with family members who have faced this dreaded disease, we care and we care deeply. This is deeply personal for me. And it's important that a lot of my own heartfelt energies go into each and every art quilt I make. I want them to be stared into, and experienced and the energies to connect with my heart and all that I am feeling ..not about Alzheimer's..about life and the purpose of our lives for creating a better world for all of us.

This quilt Quilt #9648 - Changing the World is now in the private collection of Bill Volkening. It is part of his own AAQI exhibit and recently featured at the Carlton Winery. He loved my quilt titled and used it as the name of his exhibit and has created a sweet little book on the quilts in this exhibit, including my own, titled quilt!

Bill's book can be found here:

Changing the World: Quilts from the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative ...

www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/3498527

Book 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 ...

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!

What is the AAQI?

The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) was founded by Ami Simms, a wonderful quilter, quilt teacher, and more importantly, a loving daughter and care giver of her own mother who had been battling Alzheimer's Disease.

In 2006, her idea of using quilts and quilters was put into action with the creation of "The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative" (www.AlzQuilts.org), an organization, a multi-tiered website, and a lot of amazing and wonderful volunteers staffing it and creating quilts every step of the way. As a national, grassroots charity it's mission is to raise awareness and fund research for Alzheimer's Disease. And since January of 2006, we have auctioned off or directly sold moe than 10,000 of these beautiful little quilts and sponsored two nationally touring exhibit of quilts about Alzheimer's. The AAQI has now raised more than $713,000 since January 2006! And that money has not only raised awareness but funded some amazing research at a number of wonderful research organizations.

The AAQI, itself, currently sponsors two major programs:

Priority: Alzheimer's Quilts
The first is the Priority: Alzheimer's Quilts" project, so named for the urgent need for research dollars and the hope that quilters across the country would make participation in this project a priority. Generous quilters create small format quilts (9" x 12"or smaller) which can fit inside flat rate cardboard priority mailers from the USPS.

Alzheimer's Illustrated: From Heartbreak to Hope
The second is a nationwide traveling quilt exhibit called "Alzheimer's Illustrated: From Heartbreak to Hope." It features 182 "Name Quilts" six inches wide and seven feet tall, containing the names of more than 10,000 individuals who have or had Alzheimer's disease or a related dementia. Hanging among the Name Quilts are 53 small format art quilts (9" x 12") that each interpret Alzheimer's in some way. The exhibit will tour the United States for 5 years.
In addition to these two primary programs there are even more ways that an individual or a group can help us raise both awareness and money for research funding.

Check out 33 Ways You Can Help

AAQI Quilts For Sale

AAQI Monthly Auction which lists 26 selected quilts for sale at auction from the first to tenth of each month.

Donate money

Buy earrings, tshirts, mugs, bags and other AAQI logo apparel etc.

Individually, each of us who quilts and donates our small format quilts for AAQI, continue to do our own additional work to spread the word about the organization, encourage others to make or buy our quilts.
In addition, some of us have formed groups such as the one that I started January 1, 2012. My group the Liberated Quilting Challenge began when I realized I wanted to do even more than I was already doing. At that point I was traveling back and forth from my current home in Salem, Oregon to my childhood home on Douglas Island near Juneau, Alaska, to care for my own mother who was battling Alzheimer's Disease.

After five years of the progression of her disease, and a combined total of 3 years of care giving, I knew it was only going to get harder, more challenging, and even more frightening to watch the horrible deterioration and unbelievable mental and physical loss of control in my mother. I also realized by then, that my own family had 13 members with direct DNA and two by marriage..one grandpa, both parents, and multiple aunts, and uncles..with this terrible disease or a related dementia. And I knew that based on current statistics there was a very good chance that the same might happen to me.

I contacted online bloggers who were also quilters and asked them to join in and make a difference in the lives of so many others. It was heartwarming to see the response I got as the quilts began to be created and donated.

And while we are still a relatively small group..the equivalent of a very, very small quilt guild...we have donated literally hundreds of quilts to AAQI. I, myself, have now created and donated 40 quilts ...some of them still for sale, and two of them on tour with the traveling exhibit.... all the while still traveling back and forth to Alaska, caring for my parents without outside help in their home, and blogging about my experiences.

It is challenging, but the more you do, the more you want to do. And the corollary for me, the more I give..the more I wish I could give. It is a deep, deep feeling of truly making a difference, in my own small way..one little quilt at a time.

By Michele M. Bilyeu
www. with-heart-and-hands.com

My $1,000 Promise...I've made the goal twice and am striving for more!!!
My AAQI Donation of at least a Quilt a Month Challenge to myself!

My Quilts That Are Currently Up for Sale or Auction!
8500 Froggie Went A-Courtin"
8673 Country Cowgirl at Heart
8674 Come and Play
9400 A Dream Within a Dream