AAQI: Stanley Cup Quilt-Off

The AAQI Stanley Cup Quilt Off is stirring excitement with its 'booster club' promos!

See the celebrity quilts and check out the fabulous quilters and please do start making your $1 donations into the 'Stanley Cup' of your favorites and let's see who the crowd pleasing quilt ends up being this year!

Even thought the official auction for this celebrity event is not until November...start your rootin' and tootin' and order your earrings now!!!

Official Press Release from AAQI:

(Burton, MI)-- August 30, 2011-- From November 1 to 10, twelve celebrity quilters will strap on their skates and go head-to-head in an online quilt auction benefiting the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI). To the winners go the spoils: bragging rights for the team and the individual who raise the most money for the AAQI.

Skating for the "Feed Dogs" are:
Alex Anderson, Hollis Chatelain, Becky Goldsmith, John Flynn, Renae Haddadin, and Sue Nickels.

On the roster for the "Rotary Blades" are :
Caryl Bryer Fallert, Pat Holly, Libby Lehman, Judy Mathieson, Mary Sorensen, and Ricky Tims.

For the past three years, an elite group of quilters have been raising money for the AAQI each November to commemorate National Alzheimer's Awareness Month. The group has grown from four (2009 World Quilt Federation Smackdown) to eight (2011 World Series Quilt Challenge), and now to twelve (2011 Stanley Cup Quilt-Off).

The sports parodies are suggested each year by John Flynn, as a way to encourage "trash talking" between the competitors. This year's salute to hockey includes photographs of each quilter with hockey helmet and missing teeth PhotoShopped onto bodies of famous hockey players. (Apologies to the NHL.)

The twelve quilts will be on display from November 2-6 at International Quilt Festival in Houston, Texas.
Starting Now!

Everyone can root for his or her favorite quilt(s) online with a $1.00 donation to the AAQI. "Roots" (donations) have nothing to do with the outcome of the auction, but are a way to influence the money earned by each quilter, and, of course, support the AAQI's mission of raising awareness and funding research. Donations (roots) can be made at http://www.alzquilts.org/root.html.

Additionally, Stanley Cup Quilt-Off commemorative earrings as well as apparel and accessories are available until October 15.
lts.org.

Contact:
Ami Simms
Founder and Executive Director
Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative
1200 Creekwood Trail
Burton, MI 48509
(810) 637-5586
www.alzquilts.org

The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative holds monthly online auctions during the first 10 days of each month. Our auctions are hosted by BenefitBidding.com

Sneak Preview of November Quilts! Gives every one time to get excited and plan their bidding strategies ;) And check out the commemorative earrings...last photo. They come in all of the quilt prints and are available during this time period only!!!

"Disconnected" by Alex Anderson	"Hollow" by Hollis Chatelain	"Texas Star II" by John Flynn
"I Want To Go Home" by Becky Goldsmith	"re:Joyce" by Renae Haddadin	"Red Wings" by Sue Nickels
"Poised for Flight" by Caryl Bryer Fallert	"Little Paisley Peacock" by Pat Holly	"Lucid Moments I" by Libby Lehman
"Whirling Star" by Judy Mathieson	"Last of the Garden" by Mary Sorensen	"Forget Me Not" by Ricky Tims
Root For Your Favorite Player!	Commemorative Earrings

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!

AAQI is Holding for Houston

We have quilts that have already arrived at the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiatives "Holding for Houston" page! These lucky quilts have all been selected to travel as part of the quilts going with Ami Simms to the Houston International Quilt Festival ..an awesome opportunity to display all of our quilts and let others know about this amazing cause!

Ami will be bringing 1,500 quilts this year instead of the 1,000 she has brought in years past. These quilts are all displayed on the walls of the AAQI booth and sold to quilt festival attendees...often times, these are well-know quilters...so, this is also a wonderful opportunity for the quilts and their quilters!

Congratulations to Rene' Martinez, Kathleen Connors, Laura Randolph, Kristen Shields and Lynn Makrin..you all have quilts selected, so far!!! More will be selected by Ami as she works her way through quilts after # 6805...her current pause point. I'll keep you all posted as I peruse the long list looking for quilts from our group and recording the numbers. Keep your fingers crossed and send in more quilts!


***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.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.html

AAQI Needs More Quilts!

Direct from the AAQI Update blog!

"If the “Quilts for Sale” page is looking a little thinner, that’s because we have already begun hoarding quilts for Houston.

International Quilt Festival is our biggest opportunity to sell Priority: Alzheimer’s Quilts and we can’t wait!

This year our goal is to bring 1,500 quilts!

Can you help? Money earned from the sale of the quilts you donate helps us pay for Alzheimer’s research.

As we create sales tags for each quilt going to Houston we move it from the Quilts For Sale page over to the Houston page. We’re starting with the lower-numbered quilts and only taking quilts that have never been to Houston. Once the quilts are moved they cannot be purchased until Festival. So, shop the sale page before the quilt you want is moved!

It is a very labor intensive process to create the sale tags, but at some point we hope to “catch up” and new quilts will go directly to Houston the page.

Is there a deadline for making a quilt for Houston? Yes, but we really don’t know what it is yet. By time we know, it will probably be too late to be helpful to you. The best thing to do is to dedicate the next 30 days to creating your most fabulous quilts ever. Check out the binding and “sleeve-ing” tutorials at the bottom of the quilt donation page, and budget in plenty of time to register and then ship your quilt.

Thank you for helping!

Please share this with a friend!

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.html

Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative: From Heartbreak to Hope

Would you truly like to know the real story behind “Alzheimer’s Illustrated: From Heartbreak to Hope,” the AAQI’s second traveling quilt exhibit?

AAQI's second traveling exhibit has just now come back from the AQS Show in Knoxville and will be on its way to Quilt Expo in Madison, Wisconsin in September.

The Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative is thrifty, to say the least. It conceived of and mounted a traveling exhibit of 236 quilts valued at $97,000 and pulled it off with a lot of elbow grease and about $500. That’s a pretty good return on investment!

How did they do that? Well..here's what quilt curator, Ami Simms has to say:

"First off, all the quilts were donated. Since we are all volunteers, all the labor was donated. Most of the supplies were donated.

Here’s something you may not know:

The small quilts in the exhibit are sewn to black, double-knit polyester fabric that is stitched over two pieces of corrugated plastic. In a former life the black fabric lived at a video rental store as table skirting. (This is why I never pass up a bargain. You should see what is in my basement. Maybe not.)

The cord suspending the small quilts passes through a hollow, rigid, black, plastic tube at the top that is flattened on one side. The flat side was perfect for the stick-on Velcro that holds it to the fabric headers. Where’d we get the rigid plastic tubes? At the Dollar Store. They where once the “stick” for BEWARE OF DOG yard signs. (I still have the 69 sign parts, yours for the cost of shipping.)

The cord is brought together above the quilt to raise it slightly. What’s holding it there? A single link from a length of metal chain. Why didn’t we just make the cord shorter? Then it wouldn’t wrap around the OUTSIDE perimeter of the mounting for shipment.

What did we do with 16 packages of Styrofoam pipe insulation? The original plan was to wrap each of the 182 Name Quilts around a 7″ length. It would only have taken 47 hours to pack up the show. Instead we bundled 8 lengths together, covered them with black fabric, and made “bolsters” to wrap 10 of the long narrow quilts around. Looks like a giant roll of funereal toilet paper. Keeps the quilts from wrinkling.

The corrugated plastic signs with information about the quilts for this exhibit were mostly recycled from the last exhibit. We cut them down and stuck the signs on the other side.

Each of the 182 Name Quilts has part of a wooden yardstick in a rod pocket at the bottom of the quilt to weigh it down and keep it straight when it hangs. And each one is numbered.

The entire exhibit packs into six Rubbermaid totes and weighs about 200 pounds, totes and all.

Information and photos courtesy of:

Ami Simms
Co-Curator with Kathy Kennedy-Dennis
Alzheimer’s Illustrated: From Heartbreak to Hope

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.html

To see Michele Bilyeu's blog "With Heart and Hands" redirect all links to http://www.with-heart-and-hands.com