Two of My Small Quilts are in the June Auction for AAQI

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The June auction for the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative includes two of my small quilts.  This incredible volunteer organization has raised more than $916,000 for Alzheimer’s research since January 2006!  AAQI will stop its fundraising efforts at the end of this year, and has a goal of raising at least $1,000,000 before then, and this is one of the last auctions they’ll be having.

Both my parents died from Alzheimer’s, and I wrote a bit about why I make quilts for AAQI in this blog post and also this post. Continue reading →

Citrus Mod — A Wallpaper Design

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This week’s Spoonflower design contest is to create a Mod wallpaper design, using only 3 colors (plus black or white optional).   When I was a teen, I had one wall of my bedroom papered with an op art design (much like this one by Alberto Biasi), and though I’m not sure it fits in the Modernist Subculture, I decided to go with an op art inspiration for my design.

I started mod-gridby creating a simple grid of circles.  Then, using the Adobe Illustrator distort options, I played with different options.

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Snapshots from a Geek Convention

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Spoonflower and Robert Kaufman Fabrics are sponsoring a fabric design contest with the theme being “Geek Chic”.  As a chemical engineer in a previous life, I have a lot of practical experience with geeky things, so I had tons of design ideas to start with.

I thought I’d do something with chemical symbols, but I couldn’t come up with anything that seemed like an interesting design.  I drew a number of geeky accoutrements, including the ties, test tube, sneaker and glasses below.

geek-components

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Sailing Notan Style — And the Evolution of a Design

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Spoonflower’s weekly design contest theme is “Sailing” and I immediately knew I wanted to use the Notan design I wrote about in this post.

That design used 4 different sail boat-inspired patterns (on the left below), combined Nolan-style into the 16 blocks on the right.

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A Dozen Eggs — Painted in a 12-Step Color Wheel

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Another week, another Spoonflower fabric design contest.  The theme for this contest is Painted Eggs.

I thought I’d create a bunch of 3-dimensional eggs and ‘paint’ them with some of my other fabric designs.

First, here’s how I created a 3d egg in Adobe Illustrator (version CS5).

  1. Draw an ellipse with the Ellipse Tool (see photo below)
  2. Using the Direct Selection Tool, edit the points of the ellipse to make it egg-shaped
  3. Delete the points on the left side of the ellipse
  4. Use the command Effect ==> 3D ==> Revolve to create the 3-dimentional egg

eggs-3d-egg

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Creating “Fading Memories”

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Last week I wrote about creating what is probably my last quilt for the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative.  I included a picture of my favorite AAQI quilt Fading Memories.   Several people asked how I made this quilt, so I thought I’d write about it, since I made it before I started blogging.

Fading Memories

Fading Memories

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Maybe My Last Quilt for the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative

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I started making small art quilts for the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative in 2007 when I was a new quilter.  Both of my parents suffered from Alzheimer’s, and I wrote a bit about why I make these quilts in this post.

This quilt, Fading Memories, is my favorite.  Both my parents served in the Navy in World War II, so I started with photos of them in their uniforms.  I overlaid these with photos from throughout their lives, including their children and grandchildren.  Fortunately my brother won the auction for this quilt, so I still get to see it.

Fading Memories

Fading Memories

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Three Daffodils — Another Small Quilt for AAQI

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I’m trying to finish up all the small quilts I was working on for the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative since 2013 will be their last year of fundraising.  This one is in memory of my father who grew thousands of daffodils.

I started with this photo of some daffodils in a mason jar. Continue reading →

Gockoo’s Apple Crisp — A Small Quilt for AAQI

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Last year Spoonflower.com had a contest to design a fabric based on a recipe.  I chose to do a design based on one of my grandmother’s recipes, and I wrote about it in this earlier post. My grandmother, who we called “Gockoo”, did lots of cooking and baking, and kept a handwritten journal of all her favorite recipes.

The fabric was designed to be a repeating design, but I thought it would also be fun to make a version that I could turn into a small quilt. Continue reading →