"Remembering Mother"

This beautiful piece is not mine ... but it could be yours!

"Remember Mother" 9"x 12"

The Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative is offering a special Mother's Day auction starting today and ending at 10 p.m. central time on Sunday night. During this special Mother’s Day weekend, they are offering just this one extraordinary quilt. “Remembering Mother” was made by Rhonda Dort of Houston, Texas. It is a tribute to Arline, Rhonda’s mother-in-law who passed in September of last year due to complications from Alzheimer’s.

• Bid here:
  http://www.benefitbidding.com/auctions/listings/details.cfm?item_id=6753 

• All profits fund Alzheimer’s research.

Rhonda shares her thoughts about, as well as her process for creating this beautiful wall quilt on the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative blog. To read those and to see close up photos of each section, click on the link at the beginning of the paragraph above.

There were 34 bids with the winning one $335.

Contrails

This photo was taken last evening as we watched the sun set over Lake Michigan...

All day long I had thoughts and memories of this date eleven years ago. Living on the shoreline we have a wide open view of the sky. The vapor trails in the wakes of planes flying across that wide expanse are very much a part of what we see. Their absence was conspicuous when all air traffic was halted. I created this lake piece full of contrails in response to their absence during that time eleven years ago.

Contrails - 16"x 8.5"

9/11 Remembered

To read about this quilt created for the people of New York City go here.  My intent was and is to let them know how much we feel and care for those who lived this tragedy.

In Rememberance of September 11th

The Smoky Mountain Quilt Guild members made this quilt in 2004. It honors the victims of that infamous day, September 11th of 2001, as well as the new found spirit of courage and unity of the American people that resulted from this tragedy.
It was created in conjunction with an exhibition of September 11th quilts at the Knoxville Art Museum (those quilts were part of the collection that was gathered immediately after 9/ll and exhibited at the Houston show by Karey Bresenhan and can be viewed in this book).

The individual blocks for this quilt were made and donated by guild members. The quilt was designed and hand-quilted in the museum gallery over several Sundays during the exhibition by SMQ members. When members were not quilting at the big frame, they were docents for the exhibition.

Following are close-up photos.
The writing around the center block reads, "The legacy of September 11, 2001 is one of strength, compassion, determination, resolve, and a new spirit. We honor the victims in NYC, Pennsylvania, and Washington DC."

The upper left corner blocks...
the top center blocks ...
the upper right corner blocks ...
the blocks on the right side ...
the lower right corner blocks ...
the bottom center blocks ...
the lower left corner blocks ...
the blocks on the left side ...

The center block is my contribution. To read how the lettering was stitched go here. To view the 9/11 quilt, "Out of the Rubble" I created go here.

Honoring My Friend

My friend recently lost her battle with cancer. Gayle was an accomplished artist in the medium of textiles. She took up quilting late in her creative life when her back gave out working the looms. She was well known in the world of weaving. Her tapestries, woven designer clothing, and art quilts are "out there" in many people's lives and homes ... including mine. I made a video of the few photos that I have of her multitude of quilts (many of them award winning) to honor her.


To honor Gayle's hope and courageous battle I created this piece that is up for auction at the Collage Mania Fiberart For Auction Monday and Tuesday, May 5th and 6th.

Hope - 11"x 8" (2008)

It is just one of 235 collages for this Fiberart For A Cause fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. Mine is on page 14. One-hundred percent of the proceeds goes to the ACS.

PS: Over $8000 raised on Monday.
Over $4000 raised on Tuesday.
When it was ALL tallied up, over $13,000

Collage Mania

Monday, May 5, 2008 starting at 9 a.m. CST

All collages available for a minimum donation of $80.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008 starting at 9 a.m. CST
All collages available for a minimum donation of $40.

Viewing of the 235 donated art pieces from over a hundred artist world wide to raise funds for the American Cancer Society begins today. There are 21 pages of remarkable work to be seen here. I recognize many of the donor artists names from blogs I read. My donation is on page 14. I wrote about it here.

Thanks to the generosity of the donating artists, 100% of the proceeds are donated directly to the American Cancer Society through Fiberart For A Cause. For all the details on how to participate in Collage Mania, click here.

Collage Mania will remain indefinitely on Virginia A. Spiegel's website as a resource for collage artists.

Virginia Tech Memorial Quilts Project

Grandma's Attic is making memorial quilts for Virginia Tech. They are asking quilters who have been moved by this recent tragedy to join them by making a quilt block 12-1/2" square (unfinished size) in the colors of Virginia Tech--maroon and orange. They will assemble your blocks into quilts. Finished quilts will be sent to Virginia Tech as an offering to all who have been affected by recent events. Everyone who participates in this project will have their name listed on the quilt. If you would like to incorporate some of the Virginia Tech fabric they mentioned in a blog post, go to Grandma's Attic website and drop them a note in the comment section of the form on that link. They'll send you a small piece of this fabric to use in your block.I got my small piece of "Hokie" fabric from With Heart and Hands, A Quilting Journey. When I read the posting about this project on that weblog, I knew I wanted to make blocks that had kites to represent the release of the slain students spirits.The bits left over from the kites are incorporated into this scrap block. The piecing ended up looking like buildings in a topsy-turvy world. I had no thought of creating architecture while it was being constructed.
If you would like to contibute to this project, make your quilt block in the colors of Virginia Tech--maroon and orange. It is requested to not introduce other colors into the color scheme as this is a school spirit quilt. Add only maroon, orange and neutrals (white, black, gray, off white) to your quilt block. Once you have finished your block, mail or take it to Grandma's Attic at the address listed here on their website. Please note: in order to be included in the project, quilt blocks need to be delivered by June 2, 2007.

"... and still counting" Quilt Project

The blocks that my friends were stitching a weekend ago are for the "...and still counting" quilt project.It's the idea of a young woman artist to "make a small 6" quilt for each American who has died and on that quilt small french knots to represent each Iraqi. Using the numbers from the Reed College installation in Portland, Oregon display, that's 3055 little quilts with 212 french knots on each one. The quilts will be made and bound with solid color fabrics. Any color is fine, they represent the soldiers who repesent us and we are of every color and ethnicity. The 212 french knots will be made with black thread. I've been using 2 strands of embroidery floss, and starting in the center, make a spiral of french knots. Each little quilt will have 2 grommets on each side, so they can be connected to one another with bead chain. (When I calculated out that I would need nearly 25,0000 grommets, and that is approximately how many injuries we've sustained, that's when I danced the good idea dance and knew I had to follow through with this idea.) The grommets and bead chain will allow the piece to be connected in a variety of configurations."It wasn't until I read the artist's description of her idea aloud to my friends while they were stitching that first morning that I realized her vision was for the french knots to be made with black thread. I've been in contact with her and she's assured me that the colored threads are fine, but she'd prefer black to be used.It's an open invitation to join in and contribute blocks to this incredible project. Go here to read the whole presentation of the idea, the description of this project, as well as the tutorials for making the blocks.

In Memory of the Virgina Tech University Tragedy

My heart is heavy with the senseless loss of lives. I feel a darkness, but desire to honor those who were killed with color and brightness.

Lake #22

Spectrum of Love

I'd like to share about the making of this piece. The reason for its creation is explained in a previous posting, "Out of the Rubble" near the end.

"Spectrum of Love" - 60"x60" - 2002

The crazy patchwork hearts and "ort pizza" were made in the year 2000. Making the hearts was a project that my friend, Alicia, and I had fun with when she visited me here in Tennessee that year. We each made about a dozen as valentines at that time. After she left, I continued to make more. I had set a challenge to limit the colors within each heart to one hue. After completing quite a few, I began to play with them on the design board and determined that a circle would be good. Then I made the transition hearts between the single hued ones using analagous colors.
The circle in the center is comprised of the trimmings from the silk and velvet fabric samples, lace, and ribbons used to make the hearts. This was an early ortwork piece. I did not intend to use it with the hearts when it was made. I was just playing. Arranging those scraps in a color wheel spectrum seemed the thing to do. Amazingly, the size and proportion as well as the color arrangement fit right into the center of my hearts.

There are beads tied through all the layers to quilt the area around the hearts. Random lines of machine stitching quilts the center circle.
I used the flip and sew method to construct the hearts. There is a center fabric shape cut with five sides. Additional pieces of fabric added one at a time were machine stitched to it, thus building a larger piece of fabric.
Each heart was completed before it was hand appliqued to the quilt. The pieced fabric was layered with a batiste backing and a thin layer of batting. A heart shape was drawn and machine stitched. Then the backing was slit and the shape turned right side out. The sewing of beads, sequins, and buttons plus embroidery quilts each heart.In the posting about couching yarns, I mentioned making patterns with couched yarn. That is how the vine pattern lacing around the circle of hearts is made.

I drew and cut out a paper pattern to fill the corners. It was traced around with chalk. I then just followed my drawn lines to couch the green chenille yarn. The batting and backing fabric were in place so this machine couching was also quilting that area. I had gone back and hand quilted between the leaves and stems with carpet thread.

The flowers among the vines were white commercial ones that I painted. They are held in place with knotted centers that go through the quilt.

This is the first quilt in which I used wool roving. I discovered the roving in New Zealand. It's trapped under a layer of tulle in the red border and gives the effect of light shining outward from the center of the quilt. Of course, the couched yarns in a ray pattern also contribute to that effect. This couching is also the quilting for these borders.

The border with the half-square triangle blocks of various black silk fabrics is made in Ricky Tims "dancing squares" technique that was presented in his "Caveman Quilting" workshop. I attached hand-painted Japanese satsuma buttons in their centers. My mother-in-law had these in her shop. When they were no longer being made she didn't know how to price them, so she gave them to me. I'm happy to have found a perfect place for these rare buttons.

Exhibition:
2002 - - Dogwood Arts Quilt Show - Knoxville, Tenn.
received Surface Emblellishment award and
an Honorable Mention

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Celebration Memorial Quilts

We had a grand Durand family reunion at the beginning of the summer. It was held to honor our matriarch, Dorothy Lee Durand, on what would have been her 100th birthday. She was a much loved and adored mother, mother-in-law, grandmother, and a favorite aunt. All of us called her "Dottie". And we were all in the place she loved most ... the cottage had been purchased by her father when she was 12 years old.

My personal way to honor the love my mother-in-law had for her grandchildren and for fabric was to make quilts from her fabrics for each of her nine grandchildren.

Here are the fronts and backs of the six I had presented at the reunion.

The fabrics are selected for the other three quilts designated for my two sons and the nephew I see quite often. I plan to complete them before what will have been Dottie's 101st birthday.

I used cloth from Dottie's clothes, as well as fabrics from her shop, The Torii. She was the proprietor and buyer right up until she died at the age of 89 1/2. She imported silks, cottons, wools, linens, plus gift items from all over the world. She designed and made her dresses from these fabulous fabrics. Here are photos of just a few. I'll post more when I write about the other three quilts in the future.

Her grandchildren grew up knowing the Torii for its gifts, not really taking notice of the fabrics. On each visit to Knoxville they got to choose a gift for themselves from the wonderful array of exotic objects from around the world. As adults, I wanted to give them each a token of what the Torii was really all about for their grandmother ... the fabrics. The quilting in the plain blocks between the letters of her name is of a torii, the Japanese gate.

These quilts were created and presented with much love.

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Out of the Rubble

 "Out of the Rubble" - 38"x70" - 2002

"Out of the Rubble" hung for several years in St. Paul's Chapel which is located just east of where the Twin Towers had been.

Through the Door

"Through the Door" wall quilt's theme is in the same vein as the quilts featured in my previous two postings. It was made near the end of my mother's life. She was bed ridden and tethered to an oxygen machine. Her circumstances got me to thinking about being "trapped" by illness and limited mobility.

"Through the Door" - 26"x20 - 2002 (flowers were cut out from decorator fabric samples)
Looking through the doorway of a stark room that has an old worn chair ...

into a room filled with warmth and beauty.

I had previously made Mama a large wall quilt (36"x48") that featured a huge bouquet of flowers. Here too, the "sun filled room" is beyond the doorway.