Monday, April 30, 2012

AAQI: An Open Letter from Ami Simms

Hello, My name is Ami Simms. I am the founder and the executive director of the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative, or AAQI for short.

During the first 10 days of each month, the AAQI auctions 27 small art quilts to raise money for Alzheimer's research.

Actually, everything we do supports Alzheimer's disease research. To date our profits exceed $713,000. We have been raising money to fight Alzheimer's since 2006, one quilt at a time.

The money we raise is used to fund Alzheimer's research. We hope that it will ultimately help scientists learn enough about Alzheimer's to prevent this horrible disease, find a way to effectively treat it, and perhaps even one day find a cure for it.

We also have quilts that are not auctioned. You can pick from more than a thousand quilts right now and purchase them from our website.

You can find us at www.AlzQuilts.org

Our small quilts are called Priority: Alzheimer's Quilts. We named them that for two reasons. First we ship them to their new owners in flat rate cardboard priority mailers from the post office. They are small enough to fit inside without folding.

Second, we hope that quilters everywhere will make fighting Alzheimer's disease a priority in their lives. We hope they make quilts for the AAQI and we also hope they purchase quilts from the AAQI. We can't have one without the other.

Our monthly online auctions run from the first of the month to the 10th of the month. Every month. We hope you enjoy bidding on these beautiful pieces of art, and we hope that once you get your bid in, you tell your friends.

We are totally Internet driven. Our web address is www.AlzQuilts.org

The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative is a national charity run entirely by volunteers. We hope you will join us in the fight against Alzheimer's.

Help us turn quilts into cash for research.

The web address again is www.AlzQuilts.org

May Auction is now beginning. It runs from May 1-10th. Check out all of the wonderful quilts and make a bid on your favorites!

The May Online Quilt Auction Starts Tuesday!
Please bid generously.
All profits fund Alzheimer's research.

The May Online Quilt Auction
Has Begun!

By Michele Bilyeu

Michele Bilyeu Quilts With Heart and Hands for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Join in my Liberated Quilting Challenge...and buy or donate a quilt, today!! We are changing the world...one little quilt at a time.

Sunday, April 29, 2012

A Heartfelt Thank-You Letter to AAQI



Ami Simms shares a wonderful thank-you letter that the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative just received from Dr. Domenico Praticò, Professor of Pharmacology at Temple University in response to receiving a research grant from the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative.

He wrote:

With this letter I would like to express the most sincere and the deepest gratitude to the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative for funding our research proposal entitled, “Corticosteroids, 5-Lipoxygenase and Alzheimer’s Disease.”

As you know today stress and the associated glucocorticoids imbalance are recognized as important environmental risk factors for developing Alzheimer’s disease. However, the causes responsible for this association are unknown. The main goal of the funded studies will be to discover them, and by doing so to provide new knowledge on possible therapeutic approaches for individuals who have this risk.

The trust and faith that the AAQI has put in our group by supporting our research is highly appreciated especially in a time when funding for research is tight.

Thus, despite the enormous amount of work done and significant new knowledge in our understanding of Alzheimer’s disease gained in recent years, there is still so much to accomplish, but financial support to reach this goal can be at times a serious limitation. The contribution of the AAQI supporting our fight against AD is important, highly appreciated and most welcomed, the reward for it will be simply immeasurable.

With gratitude,

Domenico Praticò, MD
Professor of Pharmacology
Temple University

Dr Praticò has also volunteered to be a part of the AAQI’s Scientific Advisory Board.

____________________

Every quilt you sew, every quilt you buy, are important. They serve a higher purpose. They make it possible for ordinary people like you and me to make a difference. Scientific research is the only way we can ever conquer Alzheimer’s. Research costs money. We’ve already raised more than $713,000. Can we raise a million?

____________________

By Michele Bilyeu

Michele Bilyeu Quilts With Heart and Hands for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Join in my Liberated Quilting Challenge...and buy or donate a quilt, today!! We are changing the world...one little quilt at a time.
Michele Bilyeu Quilts With Heart and Hands for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Join in my Liberated Quilting Challenge...and buy or donate a quilt, today!! We are changing the world...one little quilt at a time.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Buy a Quilt and Support Alzheimer's Research Funding!


The members of the Liberated Quilters Challenge have created some beautiful, small format quilts that are currently for sale at the AAQI website.

Please check out our AAQI group challenge web page and click on 'add to cart' to purchase one or more of these delightful quilts.

These are some outstanding quilts by some truly talented, and giving quilters. I am so very proud of them and their dedication to the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative.

The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (www.AlzQuilts.org) is a national, grassroots charity whose mission is to raise awareness and fund research. The AAQI auctions and sells donated quilts, and sponsors a nationally touring exhibit of quilts about Alzheimer's. The AAQI has raised more than $713,000 since January 2006.

Ami Simms of Flint, Michigan is the founder and executive director of the AAQI, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit operated entirely by volunteers. She is a quilter. Her mother had Alzheimer's.

The AAQI currently sponsors two major programs:

Alzheimer's Illustrated: From Heartbreak to Hope
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.

Priority: Alzheimer's Quilts
The second 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. These small quilts fit inside flat rate cardboard priority mailers from the USPS, which the group uses to ship quilts to winning bidders after monthly online auctions.

There are an estimated 5.4 million Americans with Alzheimer's disease. We believe we can make a difference, one quilt at a time.

Check out all of the quilts shown above on our quilts for sale:
Liberated Quilters Challenge: Quilts for Sale...look for the add to cart logo

Check out all of the AAQI quilts now for sale

Michele Bilyeu Quilts With Heart and Hands for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Join in my Liberated Quilting Challenge...and buy or donate a quilt, today!! We are changing the world...one little quilt at a time.
Michele Bilyeu Quilts With Heart and Hands for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Join in my Liberated Quilting Challenge...and buy or donate a quilt, today!! We are changing the world...one little quilt at a time.

Friday, April 20, 2012

Come and Play




I woke up this morning longing for better and simpler times. Remember the days of Dick and Jane and how much fun it was learning to read from those primers? Now, we're in the computer age and a lot of our reading and our writing is done with gadgets.

Today, I felt like the robots had taken over and I thought of this little art quilt that I had made a while back for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative and I knew that not only did I need to let you know that it is listed for sale, as are a lot of other wonderful quilts at the AAQI website, but that it was just perfect for the blog post that I have just written over on my primary blog, With Heart and Hands, a post title...appropriately enough...The New Blogger: Welcome to Bedlam

For I woke up this morning to discover...just like a lot of bloggers did.....that the interface behind the secret world of blogging had somehow magically changed over night. We are now in the brave new world of the 'new Blogger' and for those of you used to, and loving ..as I did and do..the old one...well, this one is a whole new challenge!

I am posting about this, here, as well as sharing my quilt and reminding you about all of the new quilts being listed every single day on the AAQI Quilts for Sale page, that as a result of the new blogger interface..my blog posts are no longer showing up in search engines, or in any of your sidebar gadgets etc. etc.


And if I can't find a way to republish under my old blogspot address there, as I have had to do ever since I got my own dot com in order for the linking gadget to 'read' me, I may appear invisible in your sidebar gadgets from now on.

Come on over and visit me at my latest blog post at my primary blog but do check out all of the AAQI quilts, first! And don't' forget that today was the first of a long line of AAQI Facebook Fridays!!!


Featured above:

8674 Come and Play
Michele Bilyeu
for sale at the AAQ website
$45

Michele Bilyeu Quilts With Heart and Hands for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Join in my Liberated Quilting Challenge...and buy or donate a quilt, today!! We are changing the world...one little quilt at a time.Michele Bilyeu Quilts With Heart and Hands for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Join in my Liberated Quilting Challenge...and buy or donate a quilt, today!! We are changing the world...one little quilt at a time.

The New Blogger: Welcome to Bedlam


Redirect to:

The New Blogger: Welcome to Bedlam

Saturday, April 14, 2012

AAQI Facebook Fridays



"You’ll be seeing this photo on the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative Facebook page on Friday."

Says Ami Simms..and why, do you ask?

"Why the preview? Because I’m hoping you’ll join me and other AAQI supporters by sharing a photo of one of YOUR Priority: Alzheimer’s Quilts on the AAQI Facebook page.

It’s a great way to get people excited about buying quilts. And quilt sales mean research dollars to fight Alzheimer’s. Plus you get to brag what a good shopper you are.

This is one of the quilts I purchased. “What Is She Thinking?” is an incredible rendition of the Mona Lisa in cloth. It was made by Bobbie McClure Long from East Stroudsburg, PA, and donated to the AAQI back almost 5,000 quilts ago. (If you haven’t heard, we just received our 10,000th donated quilt!)

You can see a much better picture here. Read Bobbie’s Artist Statement and you’ll know why we need to end this disease.

I hang quilt #6079, and several others, on the doors that hide the mess in the cabinets above my desk. I smile my own Mona Lisa smile, but you don’t have to wonder what I’m thinking:

I’m tickled pink to own this quilt and know that the money I paid for it helped support Alzheimer’s research.

If you don’t yet own a quilt of your own from the AAQI, we know how to fix that. You can buy one here:

http://www.alzquilts.org/quiltsforsale.html

All AAQI profits fund Alzheimer’s research.

Thanks for your support, and I hope to see one of the quilts YOU purchased on Facebook on Friday."

Ami :)

------------------------------------------

.
Michele Bilyeu Quilts With Heart and Hands for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Join in my Liberated Quilting Challenge...and buy or donate a quilt, today!! We are changing the world...one little quilt at a time.

Michele Bilyeu Quilts With Heart and Hands for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Join in my Liberated Quilting Challenge...and buy or donate a quilt, today!! We are changing the world...one little quilt at a time.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

AAQI Earns Big Bucks At Auction



The April Online Quilt Auction Raised $2,422 for the AAQI!

It is such a joyful time each, and every month to see just what quilts and quilters and our wonderful, wonderful quilt purchasers can do!

I was online for the last 20 minutes of the auction. And it was so exciting, I plan on being online at the end for all of the quilt auctions...what amazing fun!




And while I was totally delighted to see that 'Clemie' bid $175 for my own donation, how amazing it was to watch the bidding war that ensued over Susan's lovely little daisy quilt when it went from a bid of $175...as mine did...to......


A Leading Bid $ 350.00 !!!!


Congratulations to all of the quilters and quilt purchasers! We did good!!!

And no...we did not do 'well' we did GOOD!
That's $2,244 for Alzheimer's research ..awesome good!



Michele Bilyeu Quilts With Heart and Hands for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Join in my Liberated Quilting Challenge...and buy or donate a quilt, today!! We are changing the world...one little quilt at a time.

Saturday, April 7, 2012

AAQI Celebrates: 10,000 Quilts!


On Friday, April 6th the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative processed its 10,000th Priority: Alzheimer’s Quilt registration!

“Shhhh….” was made by Kristin Shields from Bend, Oregon and features a sleeping butterfly. It is dedicated “to the caregivers who might need a little rest.”

Kristin’s quilt measures 8.5″ x 8.5″ and was made with linen, cotton, and silk fabrics. It is machine pieced, hand appliqued, hand embroidered, and hand quilted. Her original design was inspired by a class she took with Jude Hill.

Kristin has made 16 quilts for her $1,000 Promise, raising more than $800 for the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative. She is also a member of the AAQI’s Quilt-A-Month Club having made or purchased at least one quilt every month for the past 14 months in a row.

And I might add, she is also a member of our own Liberated Quilting Challenge. Way to go, Kristin!

The Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative is thrilled to have reached this milestone and congratulates Kristin and every quilter who support our efforts. The Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative has raised more than $713,000 for Alzheimer’s research. We currently have quilts available for bidding (through the 10th ) as part of our April online auction, as well as ones that are sold outright without any bidding, or waiting to see if you won, on our website.

Besides these wonderfuls donation and purchasing options, Ami Simms and her volunteers also bring and sell AAAI quilts to the International Quilt Festival in Houston, each November.

Congratulations to Kristin for creating the 10,000th registered quilt and to each and every volunteer member who has made, is making, or has purchased a quilt to get us to this amazing point in time!


Michele Bilyeu Quilts With Heart and Hands for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Join in my Liberated Quilting Challenge...and buy or donate a quilt, today!! We are changing the world...one little quilt at a time.

Rosalyn Manesse



Many of us in our online blogging community, the Liberated Webring, the Yahoo Message Board, and members of our own  Liberated Quilting Challenge  mourn the passing of our dear friend,


I have been deeply saddened by our mutual loss of this dear,dear woman and pray for her three children, grandchildren, and her husband. I shall always cherish our emails back and forth, and the friendship that we shared over the past five years.

Roz faced so many family challenges, and her own illness, with so much strength, and amazing, and lovely grace. May her family be strengthened by her love, and their own sense of family and faith-filled community.

by Rosalyn Manesse

Roz was also a member of my Liberated Quilting Challenge and made several donations to (AAQI). What treasures those quilts are now! Truly made by the gift of pure spirit of Roz's heart, and with her own loving hands. I am so proud to have known her and to have featured this quilts as part of our ongoing, online group challenge. Bless you, Roz! Roz blogged at Roz-Counterpane and at Rosalyn's Kitchen Hints and published a cooking book. Rosalyn Manesse:Easy Kosher Cooking

Roz passed away, in her sleep, on her very own birthday. She leaves behind so very much more than even she could have ever guessed or known and and she will be dearly missed.

And as always, I cannot help but to urge you to consider making, or purchasing a quilt in her memory. Roz made, and donated her two quilts to the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) as she not only coped with her husband's Lewy Body Dementia, but her own series of strokes. Blessing to all who loved her, may you know that we will never forget her!



And of course, life and loving continue to go on.....as we all celebrate these Judeo-Christian holi-days, and still cope with our own stresses, and life challenges. May sewing and quilting and all of the lovely acts of creation of beauty in our lives continue to strength, and give all of our live continued purpose and joy.

Happy Easter to those that celebrate that blessed holi-day.

For those of you in our Jewish community, may you share, and celebrate
a blessed holiday of Passover, as well.

Michele Bilyeu Quilts With Heart and Hands for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Join in my Liberated Quilting Challenge...and buy or donate a quilt, today!! We are changing the world...one little quilt at a time.

Monday, April 2, 2012

Wonderful Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative Happenings!

1. The April online quilt auction is in full bloom this morning! You can see the 27 quilts we are offering this month FIVE different ways:

Watch the YouTube video, complete with digitized "music" by yours truly (you may want to turn the volume down):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9FMwKKkOIM&w=560&h=315

Head over to the AAQIUpdate blog for a slide show and gallery shots of each quilt:

http://aaqiupdate.wordpress.com/

Visit the AAQI Auction page to scroll through the quilts and artists statements one at a time, forwards and backwards:

http://www.alzquilts.org/9022.html

And then of course, the most important way --- by visiting BenfitBidding.com and actually bidding on the quilt(s) of your choice.

http://www.benefitbidding.com/listings/categories/index.cfm?category=965774286

2. The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative is about to receive its 10,000th donated quilt.

The Priority: Alzheimer's Quilt project, these awesome little quilts you bid on or buy outright, began on January 1, 2006. We are about to receive a milestone quilt in just a few days. Check out our home page for the countdown. (We're currently at 9,954 registered quilts!)

http://www.alzquilts.org

3. Why is this such a big deal? Because the profits the AAQI earns from the sales of these little quilts funds Alzheimer's research. We are trying to find a cure for this vile disease. The more quilts, the more research. To date we've raised more than $713,000 for reserach.

http://www.alzquilts.org/show.html

4. And what have we done with the money? The AAQI pays for scientific research. We have just funded our 11th research grant. We just awarded $60,000 to Temple University!

http://www.alzquilts.org/aaaw11regr.html


5. (Ami Simms) has been nominated for a segment of "Making A Difference" on the NBC Evening News with Brian Williams. Comments would be greatly appreciated. The nomination is by Beth Hartford and is the last one on page 4 when you click here: http://bethhartford.newsvine.com/ Perhaps the 10,000th quilt will get their attention. Fingers crossed. Your comments will help.
Thank you for sharing any or all of this news in an upcoming blog, on your website, on FaceBook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or anywhere else.
I so appreciate you helping the AAQI get the message out to quilters everywhere.
Ami Simms

Founder & Executive Director, Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative

More than $713,000 raised for Alzheimer's research since January 2006. Help us make a difference...one quilt at a time.
YouTube - Videos from this email



Michele Bilyeu Quilts With Heart and Hands for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Join in my Liberated Quilting Challenge...and buy or donate a quilt, today!! We are changing the world...one little quilt at a time.