With You All The Way

My mother and father lived as a team. They worked together, played together, and raised children together.

When my mother developed Alzheimer's disease, my father stayed by her side, day and night, helping her through it every single step of the way. Even when my father died at the age of 93, my mother remained peaceful and content. I knew she could still feel him next to her, always by her side...and with her, all the way.

My parents story, like so many others, goes back 61 years and through many challenges. They met during WWII and my father had to travel 5,000 miles to meet, and court her. Five children later, a house that burned to the ground around them, and the near death of three of their five children, they simply persevered through it all.

When my mother was diagnosed with advanced (stage 3b out of 4) inflammatory breast cancer, my dad brought my mother south from Alaska to Oregon...to live with me and have the three of us help her go through 3 months of the strongest chemotherapy our Salem Cancer Center had ever used, a 3 month period for a mastectomy, and three months of intense radiation. With almost no chance of surviving because of her age, other illnesses, and its late stage, she did anyway. But tragedy struck again. She survived an impossible cancer only to face the ravages of Alzheimer's Disease.

As devastating as this was for my father, he never left her side, performing all household tasks like cooking, cleaning and laundry, and all personal care for my mother... until his death. He helped her every day of his life, even while he was,himself recuperating from two heart attacks, and congestive heart failure. He could barely walk to the kitchen, but when he did, he was carrying two cups of coffee.....one for her, and one for himself. And with what little energy he had left, he sought to engage her in conversation and to bring her out of the deep lost place she had retreated to.

When he died, I lay by her side, for three days and three nights, always holding her hand and talking to her in his place. When she finally realized it was me, and not him, on the fourth day and asked me if he had died and I very gently explained how he got very old, and very tired, and very sick..she told me 'It's ok, then, Michele. That is what he wanted and needed to do. I'll be ok." And she was. I told others she could still feel him all around her...in the house he built with his own hands for her and in the every thing that we did for her in his place. Always, together...even past death...they are together, all the way.

As I looked at all of the 25 or 30 quilts that I've made and given away this year, it was this little tiny one that I knew I had to feature for Amy's Fall Quilt Festival. It symbolizes why I quilt..to give my life purpose and meaning and not just as a hobby that I love.
And yes, my stories are very, very personal. They have to be.

Like the little giraffes on this art quilt...we are all sticking our necks out to bare our stories, our pain, our loss, and our souls to work together for a cause. And A.D. creates a jungle...figuratively and literally in the brain with its plaques and tangles....so, giraffes and jungle fabrics! As a family who completely cares for our mother in her home, with no outside help, on an island in Alaska...we often refer to zoo and jungle as our lives now with this horrible disease.
This little quilt will be sold at auction next week at the Houston International Quilt Festival to raise funds to enable research into this dreadful disease through the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative


Because of the meaning this charitable donation and all of my quilts for AAQI have for me, it is my entry for Amy's Creative Side's Fall Quilt Festival. Check it out and join in the fun from Oct. 28-Nov.4, 2011

Bloggers' Quilt Festival :: Fall 2011 | Amy's Creative Side
And check out all of our AAQI quilts for sale and at auction every month at . All profits go to research funding for Alzheimer's Disease. This little quilt is heading for Houston, along with five more of my little art quilts for the Houston International Quilt Festival where it will be available for purchase along with many, many others..Nov 2-6, Exhibit Hall, Row T, in the front)
But many more are available on the AAQI website including our fabulous November 1-10 auction AAQI Stanley Cup Quilt Off featuring some very famous quilters and some super amazing quilts!

 

8228 With You All The Way

Michele Bilyeu
Salem, OR USA
Width: 12" Length: 9"
Materials/Techniques: Machine embroidery, free pieced cottons, selvage strips, prairie points, and ceramic beads.
Artist Statement: My mother and father lived as a team. They worked together, played together and raised children together. When my mother developed Alzheimer's disease, my father stayed by her side, day and night, helping her through it every single step of the way. Even when my father died, my mother remained peaceful and content. I knew she could still feel him next to her, always by her side and with her all the way.

Dedication: Dedicated to all who remain steadfast and true to those they love, trying their best, no matter what that might be, to stay with them and help them through all of the challenges of life.
Michele Bilyeu quilts for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) With Heart and Hands

Keep Moving!

During the '80's into the '90's, I used to grow and dry flowers. There wasn't a surface in my house that didn't have flowers tied with big bows of raffia set out drying. I gardened both inside and out... and it made me happy!

I used the flowers and made dried flower arrangements, wreaths for walls, doors, and photo and wooden mirror frames, and anything else I could find, hot glue, and cover with the loveliest of dried flowers.

I used them to decorate at open houses, to give as wedding, or house warming gifts, and fill up my house with these fun projects, as well.

My friends used to say "If you go to Michele's, keep moving.... or she'll decorate you with flowers and tie raffia on you." My possibilities were endless ...and because I love making them...I did.

So, now its quilting. And if you come over to my house...all I can say is "keep moving." If I see you I just might make you a quilted cover, or a quilted wrap.

Shown here: some recent projects all made from scraps. A potholder, a double potholder to hand over an oven handle, a coffee press wrap..and yes, I know...I get carried away. Those are, indeed, soap dispenser wraps.

I used to buy 'nice' soaps. No more! I buy 89 cent ones *bonus sized* and give them a fancy wrap! And of course, I know there are those giant refill bottles, too. But those don't get wrapped ;)

I thought those at least would make people question my sanity! But so far everyone who has seen them has liked them, whether they initially thought it odd or not ...and yes, may I add...wanted one ;)

So, when it comes to my love of quilting...if you come to my house.....keep moving!
I know that I do ;)


Michele Bilyeu quilts for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) With Heart and Hands Join my friend-connect to receive my frequent updates on quilting, crafting,and updates for thousands and thousands of free patterns and tutorials..widget over on the right hand side.

On The Cheap With October Projects

What do you do when you find flannel triangles on a freecycle table?
1. Make cloth diapers for dolls
2. Make bibs for pet mice
3. Make a baby quilt that's sewn with love.



What do you do with bits of leftover patriotic fabrics tossed into the trashbin?
1. Make a cot quilt for a G.I. Joe doll.
2. Make a patriotic cover for your car's rear view mirror.
3. Make a drink wrap that's suitable for multiple occasions.




What do you do when someone gives you 3/4 of a yard of fun fabric?
1.Save it for a special project.
2.Cut it up and use it as scraps in a quilt.
3. Make a loved one (or yes, even your self) a new senior bib.




What do you do when your husband scorches too many of your best kitchen potholders?
1. Tell him that he has to use his scorched ones and nothing else.
2. Tell him he cannot no longer cook in your kitchen.
3.Use scraps leftover from a quilt and make a scrappy double potholder that hangs on the stove handle. (men seldom look around for the things they need, so he'll grab the scorched ones in the drawer ;)




What do you do when you need a gift bag for Halloween candy and don't have one on hand?
1. Go buy one at the dollar store.
2. Use a ziplock or paper bag and drawpictures on them.
3. Take a section of recycled newspaper and sew a couple of them, in just minutes!




What do you do when you go through rotary cutting blades like crazy?
1. Chock it up to the price of quilting.
2. Buy a sharpener tool and try resharpening them over and over.
3. Ask your husband to pick up some carpet cutter blades from Harbor Freight for $1.49-$1.99 a package..two in a package.

I'm on my second pkg. since mid-summer. And yes, they are just as sharp as Olfa or Fiskars, but no they don't stay as sharp for as long. But at 75 cents a piece, while I'm living on the super cheap..they work just fine for now.




What do you do when you need to just 'Put on Your Big Girl Pants' and deal with the challenges of life?
1.You put them on.
2. You deal.
3. You have a good laugh at just how strange life is sometimes!

(And yes, I sent a copy of the photo to Em... who both wears, and celebrates hers ;)


And yes...of course I also worked on my favorite things to make...tiny art quilts! I think I was working on about 10 at once this month...finished and mailed 6 in to AAQI ;) Some of the ones shown, here are giveaways and a couple I might sell to earn more rotary blade money :)

Michele Bilyeu quilts for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) With Heart and Hands Join my friend-connect to receive my frequent updates on quilting, crafting,and updates for thousands and thousands of free patterns and tutorials..over on the right hand side.

Dyeing Here

Have you noticed how bloggers will stoop to almost anything to draw viewers to their blog? With titles meant to make you think they are giving up blogging, facing life or death situations, or have just been nominated for the Supreme Court......anything, and everything is fair game in trying to attract others to one's blog.

Not that I would EVER stoop to such tactics. I scoff at them when I see their titles and think..HA!...I know just what you are doing.

I'll wait an entire day..well, maybe an hour or two...before I visit a blog using such fraudulent tactics ;)

So, 'Dyeing Here' ...well, that's exactly what I am doing today people! I am dyeing...and after decades of fun....dyeing anything and everything....it is still great fun to do that final rinse and see the miracles that happen with color and design!

If you don't remember my story, I grew up in pioneer Alaska and our clothes were ordered from a catalog, and shipped up on a freight boat.....took us three months to get it from Seattle to Juneau, when I was younger, and a month or so travel time, when I was in my teen years.

I learned to sew on my grandmother's treadle and make my own tops and skirts if a school dance was coming up. And then I prayed that my only pair of shoes would not be overgrown by then, so I could still dance! We were still endlessly making do...five kids needing new shoes before new clothes....and I was the only girl, as well as the oldest.

If I wanted something brand new, I made it, myself... but then I discovered that I could dye something old and make it look brand new, again. I dyed too big things from others...and altered them to fit me. I dyed and sewed my way through high school and then, college. I left for college in 1968 ...Alaska to Oregon...it was September and I was proudly wearing my own designed, and home sewn WOOL dress, made it myself, WOOL coat, and tall brand new store bought boots..the best outfit I had ever, ever, owned.

I was so proud of my ensemble....proud it was new, proud I had made absolutely everything...even my entire set of lingerie..except for nylon stockings (no panti-hose yet, ladies!!) and boots. Computers weren't invented yet, and neither must have been out-of-state weather reporting on our tv...how did I know I was flying into an Oregon heat wave? I learned in a hurry. I was not only overwhelmed with instant heat exhaustion but stood out like a sore thumb. I asked for a sewing machine for my very next Christmas gift... to have as my own, in my dorm room in Oregon...I needed to be able to sew and adapt my limited wardrobe to my new environment.

It was the late sixties/early seventies and tie dyed ran rampant. Twisted and turned with rubber bands to make circles and streaks and waves and any fabric I could find, and dyed in super bright colors to make my wide leg pants, long hippie vests and cute embroidered peasant blouses. It was even more fun, now! Oh, I thought I was such an artiste! Those were my major crafting years....I sewed, I made pillows and comforters for my bed, crafted my own dangling earrings and hoop and pendant necklaces to wear, a macrame' hippie purse and wallhangings...the craft movement was skyrocketing back then.

Then graduation, marriage, and raising children. I still made all of my clothes, a lot of my husband's, and almost all of my children's. The dye pot was put on the back burner unless I spilled bleach on something by accident...then it was stripped of color and dyed a new one. Nothing still went to waste in my life. I'd spent too long making do and re-using everything!

Years went by, I'd discovered quilting big time and that is all I wanted to do. And then in 2005, my Alaskan sister-in-law came down to visit with a fabulous collection of Procion and Jacquard and other 'brand new to me' exotic dyes and her $1 a piece silk scarves from Dharma Trading Post...and oh what fun! We created a wonderful steam machine for my stove top (this was before we knew about microwave dying) and using her dyes and resists, and my salt and rice for disperants, we filled my kitchen in Oregon.... and then later on, hers in Alaska, with home dyed/painted silk scarves and prayers flags. And we had a ball!

So, you are wondering... why the photo with the bottle of wine? Well, those neat dyes went back with her in 2005 and we used more of them at her house in 2009. So, now I'm using what I have now. So, what else do you do when you're asked to open a bottle and get the cork down inside? You save it for eco-dying! I've tried dying with flowers, and herbs, and dandelions, and onion skins..but dying with a bottle of wine puts a whole 'nother twist to idea of "use or reuse" ! And for the total teetotalers...grape juice works too!

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.

When is an Art Quilt No Longer a Quilt?

As a quilter who also loves art quilting, I shy away from contests and challenges where my art will be unkindly commented upon, or judged. I always feel that my real life takes me away from the time I would truly want to spend on a big project that is meant to represent my skills or talents...so I don't do it at all. I also know that my chronic and severe lack of sleep has taken away from my ability to sew 'logically' and there are times I wonder why I sew at all with so many people to help ..in real life and online. So I also use that as an excuse. That makes me very sad to know that about my self.

I recently had opportunities to create quilts for a number of quilt shows, found out about them within a few weeks of their deadline, and couldn't find my fabric that I'd knew would just be perfect ...if only I wasn't "so darn tired and could remember where I had put it!!!"

I spent two days looking for my decades old specialty fabrics and still have never found my 'circus' fabrics ....I'm talking 4 inch polka dots, people... and then only had three days left to create. I gave up.

I was just too tired and didn't care if it I did make something that it would travel to awesome places and be seen by thousands and thousands. I was too tired, and too unsure of myself with this theme and no obviously appropriate fabric at hand, and so little time to care to try. Turns out they let quilters in who at first appeared to break the size requirements and all of their online and printed off list rules. I should have just made something! I was sorry that I had made excuses and given up.

Ever been in that place and time...oh, the regrets!

I've done my share of saying things out loud ...I thought I was being quiet, of course and talking to a friend.....judged others for dangling threads I wanted to pull off (can you just imagine if I had tried to?) at quilt shows and so on. I'm just as judgmental deep down inside as the next person. I just usually try harder not to be... and try harder to empathize with their quilt and quilting. So, thank goodness for my last 6 years as a 'liberated' quilter. And isn't it just so interesting that those 6 years coincide taking care of my mother at home with Alzheimer's. Both have changed a lot more than my quilting..it changed my heart and my mind about judgment. Well, I thought it had, at least ;)

But when I recently attended one of several quilt shows a few weeks ago, I found myself looking at some flying elephants and saying out loud...out loud!!!!....'How can dangling stuffed toys be considered a quilt?'

Then, I was instantly ashamed of myself. The stuffed elephants hung from a ring and under a circus tent...that was quilted. If you counted the entire length the mobile hung in space..from the quilted tent it met the size requirements. It was unusual, it had a quilt in it and it met the other rules. So, I had to ask myself...what makes a quilt? What makes it an art quilt? And why in the world was I judging and doing it out loud where even it's creator might have heard me??

What I was....was jealous. 'If that was all it took to get a project into a show'..my judging brain was saying...why hadn't I tried? That person, that quilter had created something, something unusual, something with a quilted section, something that in art might be called a quilted art installation piece. Loosely interpreted, for sure..for a lot of us, but they had made fabric art and entered fabric art..and it had been accepted into the show.

I had not... and I had nothing. So, this piece taught me more about myself than perhaps about quilting. But it had its own impact...as all art should.

I had wasted two days searching for that 'perfect' fabric in a horrendously packrat garage and the next two days deep in a rut... and artistically paralyzed. I had created my own artist's block and now I was comparing what I was seeing with judgment.

There weren't very many entries in the "Flying Circus" challenge from a local quilt shop in this part of the bigger show and I know art is art and fabric is fabric. But what makes a quilt besides three layers sewn together? It doesn't have to be on a bed, obviously. It can be on a table, on a wall, hanging from a tree or a telephone pole or covering a car

But when does art quilt cross the line and become an 'installation' as some of those more unusual artists call their works.....you know the kind...silk banners all over Japanese hillsides...that kind of art. And when is an art quilt no longer a quilt?

So, yes, I still have my judgments and my thoughts on this. But I'm trying to be more open and not voice them out loud ...in public, out loud ;)

Well, it was interesting to think about... and good to know how, and why, I might judge. Judgment, as they say, is one finger pointing at someone else... and the rest of them pointing back at me. Ouch!

Sometimes art can bring out beauty and sometimes it brings out pain. I think I might just be bruised from this one ;) Will I enter the next quilt show challenge I am offered..I don't know. Will you?

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.

iSad

I may be a PC but i still sad.

I hope Steve Jobs realizes the amazing mark he left on us... and on our world..even just for the sparking of the competition and the making of my own pc better!

Condolences to all of you Apples, Macs, i's of all kinds and the entire Job families.

And my favorite quote of his:

"No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

Steve Jobs, Stanford commencement speech, June 2005

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.

*logo above one of the many now being designed and used by fans of Steve Jobs.

Gwen Marston Virtual Retreat

I've resisted becoming a hoarder my entire adult life. I called myself a collector, someone who loves to save resources and references, someone who wanted and needed to have groupings of things that supplemented her hobbies, crafts, and passions.

I am incredibly thrifty, alright, downright frugal, and only buy on sale and with discounts. So imagine, my delight at acquiring, bit by bit, all these lovely Gwen Marston books...on sale, on clearance, and through university outlets. And yes, I want to get a couple more than I am still missing ;)

I first met Gwen (and I think Freddy) at a quilt show ...or maybe it was a crafty Harvest Fair, which also had quilts back then... in Sisters, years and years ago. I had no idea who either of them was, I don't even know if Freddy wore red glasses back then. Whoever I met was quiet and sweet and greeted me as I introduced myself at their table. I remember loving their quilts and cannot tell you if they had books to sell, back then or not. But they were together, so they must have been in the collaboration process, at least! I know Gwen's Liberated String Quilts came out in 2003..maybe it was as far back as then! I don't think it was in the late 90's when she had actually lived in Oregon for a time and learned to quilt from the Mennonite Quilters of Canby.And Gwen and Joe Cunningham were together and collaborating in the '80's so it wasn't that far back!

I can't find my photo of them, and can't remember the year...sad huh? But I didn't have a blog until 2006 and while I'd been quilting since the early 70;s. Heck, the Internet was barely invented and OSU's computer took up an entire room in a building in the late 60's and 70's! I thought it was a miracle that we even bought a computer in the 90's and while it was all Dos and no Window invented until much, much later, and a computer was so very, very hard to use back then..I still taught myself to compute on it and printed off boxes of amazing 'reference' materials on all things of interest to me.

Times have changed, I have most definitely changed, and now fanaticism, collecting, and sewing and quilting have overtaken my life! Did I mention blogging ;)

I go back and forth who I love the most...one day, I love Gwen's amazing abilities with intuitive design, other day's its Freddy's outright audacity with color and her ability to make spur of the moment decisions and never waver on her choices..slapping things together and making mountains out of parts department molehills. Amazing, I tell you!

Now, I happily thumb through my book collection and the photos I have taken of them at another quilt show in 2009 and I think...I've come a long way, baby.

At least now, I know who they are ;)

My links to more photos of Gwen and Freddy and their quilts from meeting them at the Sisters Outdoors Quilt Show in 2009:
Freddy and Gwen: In Sisters Again!
Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show 2009

Bits & Pieces: Intuitive Quilts from the Northwest and Beyond

When you enter the A.N. Bush Gallery located in the Bush Barn Art Center in Salem, Oregon, you expect to see unusual and beautiful artwork. You are not necessarily expecting to find a display of quilts...especially beautifully designed, colorfully creative quilts that have been pieced in the innovative style now known as liberated, intuitive, or improvisational quilting.

But when you walk up the charming little steps of the art gallery to the stair landing.... and you see the first welcoming quilt by Kay Worthington and the words Bits & Pieces: Intuitive Quilts from the Northwest and Beyond .... you realize quilts are now firmly planted in the world of art, and art galleries.


Bits & Pieces features the work of both established, and emerging fiber artists living and working in the Pacific Northwest. The exhibit was the brain child of artist/ organizers, Bonnie Hull and Kate Speckman, made pos­si­ble through the gen­er­ous sup­port of Michele Pat­ter­son, Pres­i­dent of the Salem Art Asso­ci­a­tion Endow­ment Foun­da­tion.

This new multi-layered world of quilts as art may have begun with the ladies of Gee's Bend, but has evolved into an entire movement of quilters, both online and...off the grid.

And while some of the beautiful quilts of Gee's Bend were invited into this exhibit and that information went into publication, unfortunately, their arrangements fell through. However, I was not disappointed in the slightest...for the quilts I did see were unique, and lovely in their own right.

At the core of the exhibition are the works of five invited quilters: Jean Wells, of Sisters; Andrea Balosky, formerly of Sisters and now living in Nepal; Dorothy LeBoeuf and Salem native LeeAnn (Erickson) Decker, both of Seattle; and Sujata Shah, of Philadelphia, who began quilting while living in Seattle. The exhibit also includes work by a number of juried quilters from around the Pacific Northwest. And the extra bonus of local quilters and artists, exhibition organizers, Bonnie Hull and Kate Speckman and artist/quilter Kay Worthington, whose quilt is shown above on the titled red wall.

Jean Wells:


Jean Wells - Quilt Artist, Author, and Instructor known for her quilts, as well as for her ownership of the Stitchin' Post in Sisters, Oregon and the nationally known Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show, has long been an artist in progress.

Her quilts in this show are a combination of several I have seen before, and two new ones that I had yet to see...proving she continues to surprise and delight us with her incorporation of the natural world into her fiber art and the constant creation of new and even more unusual quilts.

***
Andrea Balosky (Nyima Lhamo):



Andrea Balosky, is a quilter who many of us also know as Nyima Lhamo. Originally from Oregon and having quilted in both Portland and Sisters, she has become an inspiring story of determination to create with few resources and an indomitable spirit. Nyima(Andrea) has found a way to create quilts and transport them out of the Himalayan Mountains from the small village of Mungpoo. Originally, she had only a common pair of utility scissors, fabric given to her from another Indian quilter, and batting she had originally taken from upholstered pieces.

I first learned of Andrea when she emailed the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative earlier this year, asking AAQI founder, Ami Simms if 'she could bend the rules a bit." Nyima (Andrea) wanted to register six quilts for donation to AAQI, but couldn’t print off the confirming email because she has no printer in the Himalayan Mountains!

Andrea is an American who has lived lived in the Himalayas since 2004.. She describes herself as a “Buddhist recluse, but recently with internet access."

When she moved to Mungpoo in the Darjeeling District of West Bengal, India, she transformed from her previous life as a professional quilter in Oregon to .."engage in a contemplative life, I easily renounced all of my mundane activity, including quilting." Life and quilting have now combined. Her quilts (shown above) are exceptionally lovely and intuitively original. To learn more about Andrea read the full story here.

To see Andrea's AAQI quilts click here:

***

Sujata Shah:

Many of us know Sujata Shah as the previous Seattlite who moved to Philadephelpia. A member of the Pacific Northwest quilters known as 'The Rebels" which also includes exhibition quilter Leanne Decker and exhibit creator, Bonnie Hull, each quilter maintains her own online blog. (click on their names for hyperlinks) So, it was lovely to be able to see some of their beautiful quilts, as well.

Showing their own unique and individualistic styles, you can see the merging of the bits of old with the look and pieces of new in each quilt. Whether it is the use of color or design, thematic feeling or subject matter, each quilt calls us to a new version of quilted inquiry or quiet contemplation. Below, we have quilts by ...

Dorothy (Sally, or Buffy to her friends) LeBoeuf and LeeAnn (Erickson) Decker:

***

Bonnie Hull and Kate Speckman:

***And additional quilts from artists from the Salem and Portland areas that had their quilts juried into the exhibition. They included Lora Bristow, Victoria Gordon, Joanna Price, Jessica Rodgers, and Ross Sutherland.

**

Kay Worthington:

Double click to zoom into my online photo album and use the magnifying icon for more detailed viewing of any of these quilts for each quilt has a story to tell, and each artist a way of expressing it.

As for me, I just absorbed the entire experience and hoped I would remember what I could, and have photos of the rest!

I felt so fortunate to have arrived early and to be one of only two viewers in the exhibit at the time. And...Bush Barn Gallery Director Catherine Alexander, graciously allowed me to photograph the quilts. Her only request...to email her my blog post link so others who could not make it into the exhibit might have a chance to see the quilts, as well! As a online blogger, I was more than happy to oblige :)

The energy and vibrancy of these quilts was amazing. I was lucky...I got to see, breath them in, and contemplate them in person. And no, I managed to resist touching any of them....but boy, did I want to ;)



other links:
Salem Art Association – Official Site
Quiltopia takes over Salem with shows, tour, tea
(Bits&Pieces is part of Salem's "Quiltopia". a series of events that take place over the entire weekend. Photos from that quilt show at Mission Mill coming next!


**Blogger Michele Bilyeu quilts for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI), is a member of the Mid-Valley Quilt Guild, and writes on her web blog ,With Heart and Hands, at www.with-heart-and-hands.com

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