Quilters, an incredible family

For the last four weeks my little nine year old granddaughter has been in the hospital in California.  She was admitted because she was having severe diarrhea/blood.  They ruled out bacterial and viral infections.  This took about two weeks.  She had to have a  (Pix IV, not sure of spelling) put in because they had to give her nourishment, liquids and meds.

When the infections were ruled out she had to have an endoscopy and a colonoscopy with a biopsy.  From this they found that she had Crohn's disease.  After starting medication they allowed her a liquid diet and then a soft solid diet.  After one day on the soft food she began having trouble again so off food and back on the IV diet.


This photo shows her in the courtyard with her dog Clyde.  He was able to visit.  She adores Clyde.

After her relapse I put out a request to our local guild, Lake and Mountain Quilt Guild. My friends on Face Book and the Quilting Arts Digest on line chat group.  Not only has she been receiving an outpouring of cards, someone sent her this little quilt.  My DIL said it only said from Susan, Clemson, SC.  I know Susan has to be associated with our guild and am trying to find out who this Susan is.  I want to send her a note of gratitude.

Sydney is quit the creative one.  Her room is filled with Origami cranes that were made by employees at the Museum of Natural History in San Diego, CA where my son works.  She decided that she wanted to make cranes for a little patient, down the hall from her, who has leukemia.  She made a string of them for the girl to hang in her room.

She's also been busy making sock critters.  These are made from hospital socks and some decorative thread I sent her.








 A few of Sydney's critters

I have always known how generous quilters are, I've seen them make comfort quilts, quilts for the military, homeless, chemo quilts, pillows, doll quilts for abused children, disaster and the list could go on and on.  However, when you are personally touched by the generosity of this giving community you really realize how special quilters are.

Sydney is on solids again and we are hoping that this time she will be able to tolerate the food so she can go home.

 This is a photo of Sydney going through fabric in my studio a couple of Summers ago.  When I told her she could go through my fabric and pick out what she wanted, her eyes got big and a smile crossed her face.  I think this little girl will grow into a quilter one day.  Whether or not she becomes a quilter I know that she will find a way to "Pay it Forward" because that is the kind of person she is.





This post is linked to www.ninamariesayre.blogspot.com

PS: Since I wrote this Sydney has received bunches of cards.  She also received a small pieced angel and a small wall hanging of two owls.  The owls came from Sylvia Weir from the Art Digest on-line group and the angel from Susan Wright of my local guild.

Sent from Sylvia Weir

by Susan Wright













I can't tell you how much receiving these have meant to this little girl.  I found out today that if things progress today as they have for the past two days that she will be able to go home tomorrow.  I also found out that her group Girls on the run have decided to honor her by making up bags of crafts, stuffed animals, etc  to take to the Children's Hospital.  What a wonderful thing that has come out of her ordeal. 

A Beautiful Fabricated Face

On May 3, I am teaching my Fabricating Faces class for the Foothills Piecemaker's Quilt Guild in Greenville, SC.  When I teach a class I always like to make a new sample.  It refreshes my memory on each step and I always like to have a new piece to show.

This beautiful girl to the left is one of my granddaughters.  I was lucky enough during the Easter holidays to be with her and get some much needed new photos.

In this post I am going to show the steps to this process and explain just a little how this is done.

This is not quite the finished product as it has not been pressed.  I also am going to add a few more things when I get time.  Looks like her doesn't it?

The first step is to do some computer manipulation in PSE to create a posterization.  This gives you the pattern you will follow.

















Here I have selected the four value shades of light gray/dark gray.  It looks like I have covered some of the fabric up, but you get the idea.

Cutting out layer one.  Isn't it amazing how much of this images comes up with just two values of fabric?

Cutting layer two.  Here I have added the third layer of value.  It's coming together isn't it?

Cutting layer four.  You may notice that I am only talking about cutting three layers.  The first layer acts as the base for the image and you actually begin cutting on layer two.  A bit complicated for this post, but not difficult to understand in class.

Just about finished.  I have a few things I need to do to this layer before I press all the layers together. 

This is such a fun technique to do, the students are always excited with the end results.  In a few weeks I will have some student images to share.

www.ninamariesayre.blogspot.com   This post is linked to Nina Marie's Off The Wall Fridays 

I really wanted to get this done before I posted so I spent more time in the studio tonight than normal.  Wanted to try the rose in red.  What do you think?  Shades of gray or red?

A busy week with nothing to Show

It;s been one of those weeks when you work all day and into the evening with nothing tangible to show.  I really have accomplished a lot and I suppose you could call it creative but it's not work done in my studio.  I haven't been able to really create art work for a few weeks and I miss it.  Actually I think it is affecting my attitude. This morning I decided that no matter how much I needed to work on other things tomorrow is a create day in my studio.

These are a few things that I did accomplish this week.  There are two exhibits calls that had to be in this week and I was able to get the paper work and labels for pieces that I had finished made.  I entered Ohn and A is for Aubrey in the Thirty-Fourth Annual South Carolina Juried Exhibit at the Pickens Museum of Art.

Ohm

 A is for Aubrey

Just found out that A is for Aubrey was juried into the Pickens Museum of Art.  More later.















As I began downloading these images I realized that my granddaughter Aubrey was the inspiration for both of these piece.  The jurier will make selections this weekend and we will know if our work has been chosen by next week. 

I also entered three pieces in the upcoming exhibit Wings at The Arts Center in Clemson, SC.

 
Watching for Worms

Wax Wing

Sanctuary















When I delivered my work I got a little sneak preview of some of the entries.  This is going to be a great show.

Other things on my list this week have been computer generated work.  I am going to be teaching at the North Carolina Quilt Symposium 2014, held in Wilmington, NC.  I had to spend time this week getting information together to send for their brochure.  The other biggie and there is still lots of work to do on this one, is my week long class in June at J. C. Campbell Folk School.  This is my first time for teaching this class so I have lots of instructions and information to compile.

Looking forward to tomorrow and a little play time in the studio.

Linked tohttp://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

A Wedding and Art Therapy

Just a little personal note here, my son was married this past weekend in Richmond, VA.  Can you see how happy he is?
The wedding was in his back garden, a beautiful place, the weather cooperated and we had a wonderful time.  Now on to art work.

This is my DH and my wonderful MIL.  For 90 yrs. this lady took care of herself, family, friends and her church.  Last year, she began forgetting things and it progressed very fast.  Within the year she had to go to a Memory Unit at a nursing home.

We live in SC and she lives in NC.  We visit as often as we can and stopped by on our way back to SC from the wedding.  We brought her some wedding cake and showed her photos of the wedding.

When we arrived she was in the activity room painting.  Visitors are always welcome to come in and visit when the patient works. 

The activity director, Nita is so outgoing, she always has something funny to say to the patients and she finds ways to keep each one interested in what is going on.

I was so impressed with how she encouraged the patients.  She gave them each a photograph printed on regular paper.  The subject that day was a bird in a tree.  Each one is given paint and brushes and encouraged to paint over the photograph.  It is somewhat like coloring but the colors are already there.  However, that didn't mean everyone used those colors.  I didn't think until after we left the craft room to take photos so I don't have the ones of the birds.

 These two paintings show how differently each person sees the flower.

Look how impressionistic the bottom piece looks. I wanted to share the wonderful work that these people do.  Nita said that she wants to encourage, not intimidate the patient.  What a wonderful way to achieve her goal.  The white spots are where I removed names to insure privacy. 

This post is connected to Off the Wall Friday  www.ninamariesayer.blogspot.com