University of Michigan - Cancer Quilts Gallery

My Fiber Artists @ Loose Ends group made art quilts for the Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Michigan. They are currently on display until August 17th in the waiting area gallery. The theme of each piece is a plant or animal being used in chemotherapy.

Click here to learn more and get directions to the exhibit. Pictures provided courtesy of Anne Cooper from the University of Michigan. After August 17, 2009, the pieces will be moved to their permanent home in the Bone Marrow Transplant area of the Cancer Center. I recently received an email from a women who was very touched by the exhibit. She was there waiting for her sister who is being treated for Breast Cancer.

To see close-up pictures of the individual cancer quilts on the Fiber Artists @ Loose Ends website , click here.

Sacred Threads 2009

I have returned from Columbus Ohio. It was a short trip to see several quilt exhibits including NQA, Quilt National and Sacred Threads. Here are my Sacred Threads pieces: Fire Dance and Praise.

The Sacred Threads show was even better than I anticipated. I was very familiar with all the quilts from working on the Show CD and the jurying system. But, seeing the work in person is incredible.

More People To Love My Kids

You read about "blended families" and that kids having more adults to love them can be a wonderful blessing. Well, my kids have that, sort of. They have Honorary Grandparents. Don and Peggy have been close friends of my parents since before I was born. We celebrated Thanksgiving together for as long as I can remember. And as an adult, they loved to tell me what they thought of my various boyfriends that I would bring home for visits. One of my sweetest memories is when Don took me to lunch on the day I was to be married, after a painful broken engagement. He reached out to me on a tough day. Now when that anniversary comes around, I remember his kind gesture and our time together.

So when I was pregnant with our first child, Mike and I asked Don and Peggy to be Honorary Grandparents. Mike's parents are both deceased so this gave our kids two sets of grandparents and increased our extended family circle.

Don and Peggy are true grandparents. They celebrate all our major events and love and dote on the kids. It wasn't until the kids were older, that they realized that Gran and Gramps weren't actually blood relatives. When my youngest was in elementary school she wrote a little paper on how she had inherited her love and skill for painting from her grandfather. (His website is http://www.donaldfredericksen.com/).

So, this past weekend, Don celebrated his 80th birthday. I made this little quilt to celebrate. The photo was taken at my son's Eagle Court of Honor.


You just can't have too many people that love your kids.

Hoffman Challenge 2009

My Hoffman Challenge piece called Woodland Spring is done and on its way to Fort Collins, CO.

It took me awhile to be inspired by this year's Hoffman Challenge fabric. But finally, the idea for Woodland Spring surfaced. New leaves and blossoms are just appearing in the forest.
I used my Lazy Landscape for the background and my Graceful Trees design. Hot fix pearls made the sweet little blossoms.

Quilt Camp - Finally, Time for New Work

Just before Easter, I had the great fun of having 5 friends join me at my beach house in California for a week of sewing. We set up the family room, overlooking the ocean, with sewing tables, ironing boards and a cutting area.
We had a blast. It was one of my best vacations ever. I concentrated on UFOs and made this new piece here called Icelandic Poppies. I was inspired by all the California poppies that were in bloom.

Special Occasion Quilt

In late March we celebrated my Dad's 80th birthday. So naturally, I wanted to make a special gift to commemorate the occasion.

This simple piece features a photo of my folks, my brother and me, our spouses and the 6 grandkids. I had each of my kids write a sentence about why they love Papa. I free-motion quilted their words in the blue border.

I learned a lesson in making this small piece. I added the narrow black flange to the blue border before I attached it to the half-square triangle inner border. Duh, the flange covers up my near perfect points.

The Alliance for American Quilts: Quilters' S.O.S.

I was interviewed for the Alliance of American Quilts - Quilters' S.O.S. - Save our Stories as an artist in the Sacred Threads Quilt Exhibit. You can read my interview, by clicking here.

This picture is of my quilt, Miriam's Dance which exhibited at Sacred Threads in 2007.