Margaret’s Hope Chest: Quilts for Homeless Children

These are two traditional quilts I made for Margaret’s Hope Chest,

http://www.margaretshopechest.com

a quilting non-profit organization that serves other people in seemingly hopeless situations. They strive to share with people around the world the HOPE that we have been given. They have partnered with Craft Hope

http://crafthope.com

and made it their goal to provide a quilt for each child in the Grand Rapids (Michigan) Public School system who is homeless during the Holiday season.

They estimate they will need 400 quilts.

This project touched me deeply, and knew I needed to make a quilt.

I pictured these children and thought about how much a homemade quilt would mean to them. The project was easy, make a quilt out of squares.

Any size, any number, any color.

I spent almost an hour trying to pick out the right fabrics to communicate “you are loved” to the child who would receive my quilt.

The fabric I found, and had to have in the quilt had, “bloom, imagine, love, sing, dance, believe, create, wish and play” written on it.
Since traditional quilts are not my thing, I over estimated how much fabric I would need. So I ended up with enough squares to make 2 quilts.

Though this meant extra work, I thought about a pair of sisters receiving them.

I am fortunate enough to have a sister, and growing up we often had matching things. I hope that if there are a pair of sisters, they will be thrilled to have matching quilts.

Here is a picture of me and my sister as kids

All grown up now, here we are with her daughter

I finished one quilt so far, and the top for the second.

They are slightly different in pattern.

I quilted hearts and XO's

The second top, I hope to quilt it during the week.

I had this adorable flannel fabric for the backing

They are due November 16th.

Innovations St. Louis Con't

One of my favorite stops on our tour was,

The Craft Alliance, Elements: The Art of Textile Collage exhibit

It was a beautiful display featuring artists,

Bob Adams, Luanne Rimel, Joan Schulze, Fran Skiles, and Barbara Lee Smith
We absolutely loved Barbara Lee Smith's work, including these cool boats.
We asked what she used to make her pieces, it looked like an interfacing or something.
We found out that is is called Lutrador, a fabric made in North Carolina generally used for the upholstery business, she paints the white surface with watered down acrylic paints
Some of her other piecesThey captured a feeling that we just connected with

The Arch, of course

I love this

I love the way the sunlight is creating lights and shadows on these leaves.

I love the composition of this picture, could be a future quilt

For lunch we went to Schlafly Tap, http://www.schlafly.com/brewpubs.shtml

It was a great recommendation from Robin at Art Saint Louis

It was a yummy meal, and they had this cool shirt signed by Obama

I couldn’t resist getting a picture with this Buddha Bunny

High School kids helped make it

Some other cool stuff we saw

St. Louis is a great city for the arts,

there is a real sense of appreciation and energy for the arts everywhere we went

Our second to last stop was at the Morton J. May Foundation Gallery at Maryville University

for the ArtFiber exhibit

Our last stop before leaving was Quilt National 2009 at the Foundry Art Centre

http://www.foundryartcentre.org/

I loved having the opportunity to see them again with my husband, to have someone to discuss each piece with, and to examine how they were made.

I am always pleased when we like and dislike the same art.

There is no photography allowed at Quilt National.

We truly enjoyed our trip to St. Louis and hope to make it back in 2 years for the next Innovations event

Innovations in Textiles 8, St. Louis

Last weekend we went to St. Louis for the Innovations textile event.

http://www.craftalliance.org/exhibitions/it/2009/it8.htm

Our first stop was to the Fiber Focus exhibit at Art St. Louis

www.artstlouis.org

We had the privilege of meeting artist Linda J. Metrick who made this beautiful woven piece.

She lives near my school and was excited that I have looms and might come in and teach my Art Club kids how to weave.

These pictures do not do the piece justice, it is pure white and woven so that it is 3 dimensional and create amazing shadows in the piece.

Eye of The Beholder: Photography Exhibit in Houston

You can check out pictures from the Eye of The Quilter exhibit in Houston here:

http://www.quiltart.com/eob/

Mine is on the last picture at the bottom. Some beautiful work in the exhibit.

Ravenswood Walk 2009, Fiber Artist Aviva Alter

One of our first stops on the walk was 4F Design where we met fiber artist Aviva Alter (http://www.artslant.com/global/artists/show/47634-aviva-alter ) and her husband Alan Lerner, http://www.4fdesign.net/. She had a great piece made of old army blankets and jackets. I suggested she check out Quilt National to enter one of her pieces next year. They had a T-shirt business and had several shirts on sale. Here are the ones we went back on Sunday to buy.

Their logo stamped on the lower back of the shirt.

Ravenswood Walk 2009, Some Pictures From The Day

One of the highlights of the walk was finding these luscious fabric remnants for sale. Each is about 3 feet by 2 feet and I got 11 of them. They are so beautiful. I just enjoy looking at them and cannot wait to add them to some future pieces.

This is a fabulous artist, Robert Wapahi that we met two years ago when we went on the walk for the first time.

This is a fabulous artist, Robert Wapahi that we met two years ago when we went on the walk for the first time. He took it upon himself to start painting this wood wall in the alley behind his house. He wanted to cover up the local tags that had been showing up on the wall. Soon the local kids were asking if they could help him paint. He gets the paint from a buddy who brings him the left over paint from his business. He said that since he started painting the wall, the tagging has stopped, and that it is understood that you do not tag over another artist’s work as artistic respect for other artists. The mural spans 60 feet. He hopes to continue it onto the building at the end of the alley next to the wall.

The wood wall was left behind when the finances for a second condo building fell through.
When we met him two years ago on the walk we were blown away by his pen and ink drawings. So much so we bought 2 of his pieces.

Close ups

Each stop on the walk has a chair to help walkers find the presenters.

A sign I liked on the steps to The Blago Project.

Inside the Von Orthal Puppets studio

Another chair

Husband Adrian taking some HW pictures for his class at Ricard Stromberg Photography Classes, http://chicagophotoclasses.com/

Hope you enjoyed my photo journey.