Daily Blog

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This fabulous quilt, Celestial Sedona, was created by  Norma J. Ippolioto of Chester, VT. It was based on the Sedona Star pattern, the TQS BOM for 2012 designed by Sarah Vedeler. It won 1st Place Traditional at Road to California 2016.

Artist statement: This quilt features a variety of construction techniques: piecing, raw edge applique, and embroidered applique with decorative stitching. Building from the center out, it became a three-year journey resulting in the most challenging quilt I have made and also the most rewarding.

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Carolyn's quilt, Stars for a New Day, was the TQS BOM in 2009. It was another spectacular medallion quilt designed by Sue Garman and has won a number of ribbons throughout the quilt world.

Learn more about Carolyn and TQS BOMs in Show 2001: Delectable Curves & Points.

StarsforaNewDaybyCarolynHock - 36 Pieces Non-Rotating

StarsforaNewDaybyCarolynHock - 100 Pieces Non-Rotating

StarsforaNewDaybyCarolynHock - 289 Pieces Non-Rotating

StarsforaNewDaybyCarolynHock - 36 Pieces Rotating

StarsforaNewDaybyCarolynHock - 100 Pieces Rotating

StarsforaNewDaybyCarolynHock - 289 Pieces Rotating

Original Photo: Mary Kay Davis

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Carolyn's quilt, Stars for a New Day, was the TQS BOM in 2009. It was another spectacular medallion quilt designed by Sue Garman and has won a number of ribbons throughout the quilt world.

Learn more about Carolyn and TQS BOMs in Show 2001: Delectable Curves & Points.

Original Photo: Mary Kay Davis

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Keepsake Quilting supplies you with tips to figure out just how much fabric you need to back  your quilt.

Click here to go to their website for backing fabric.

While it can be confusing, figuring out what type or size of quilt backing you need isn't as hard as it might seem. Just follow these simple tips:

• If you're planning to send your quilt to a longarmer, you will typically need a backing that is 6" longer than your quilt top on each side so that it can properly be loaded onto the quilt frame. For example, if your quilt is a 74" square, your backing must measure 86" square. Follow any other backing preparations from your longarmer, such as the direction of your seams if you're piecing your back together. If you're in the market for a longarmer, did you know Keepsake Quilting offers finishing services?
• For the home quilter planning to sew their quilt top on their domestic machine, it's recommended that your quilt backing measure between 3" and 4" longer than your quilt top. For example, if your quilt top measure 72" x 80", your quilt backing would measure around 78" x 86" for a 3" allowance around your quilt.
• Quilt backings from Keepsake Quilting and other quilt shops will typically measure 44" wide. While this might be fine for some throw quilts or baby quilts, any quilt larger than that will require an additional length of fabric. For this reason, many quilters are used to piecing together two lengths of backing fabric for larger quilts like those for a queen sized, king or even twin bed.
• If your quilt is longer than 37" (remember: you want to leave between 3" - 4" on each side of your quilt backing!) and don't enjoy piecing together the long seams that two pieces of backing fabric requires, look for extra wide quilt backings fabrics that measure 108". The same rules apply here as with 44" wide quilt backing: 6" longer on each side if you're sending the quilt to a longarmer and 3" to 4" longer on each side for the home quilter.

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The winter exhibits at the Texas Quilt Museum will feature incredible art quilts, works with a higher purpose, and prizewinners from the quilt world’s most prestigious annual Judged Show!

They will run from January 5-March 25, 2017.

Museum co-founder Karey Bresenhan will also give a free lecture on Saturday, January 14 at 3 p.m., with Museum admission free beginning at 2 p.m.

“Sacred Threads 2015” explores themes of spirituality, joy, inspiration, peace, grief, and healing in a beautiful collection of 20 art quilts. This biennial juried exhibition was established to provide a venue for quilters who see their work as a connection to the sacred and/or as an expression of their spiritual journey. “I hope that the exhibition will resonate with the spirituality of our visitors and provide a healing environment following the recent period of intense societal divisiveness,” Museum Curator Dr. Sandra Sider offers.

“SAQA’s Tranquility Exhibition” will feature 26 works from members of the Studio Art Quilt Associates on the theme of tranquility. “These art quilts celebrate the gentle melding of thoughts and consciousness that many seek on the path of personal enlightenment,” Dr. Sider says. “They represent tranquility through color, line, and composition as each work sets a mood for the viewer.” The exhibition was juried by Kate Lydon, Director of Exhibitions at the Society for Contemporary Craft in Pittsburgh. (more) "Joy" by Judy Warner. From "Sacred Threads 2015."

Finally, “Quilts: A World of Beauty Prizewinners 2016” features 32 award- winning quilts from the prestigious annual Judged Show of the International Quilt Association. More than 620 quilts were entered of which just over half were juried in for the competition. Judges then decided on the prizewinners. All in all, more than $96,000 in cash, non-purchase prizes were awarded in more than 20 categories, along with eight major prizes and Judge’s Choice.

The Texas Quilt Museum, housed in two adjacent, historic, and refurbished 1890s buildings, is also home to the Pearce Memorial Library and Material Culture Study Center, and a Museum store. On the grounds is “Grandmother’s Flower Garden” with flourishing native plants and flowers that sit beneath the massive mural Quilts...History in the Making.

Click here for more information regarding the Texas Quilt Museum.

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It is time to put away all the holiday decor and begin plotting the new year. Thank you so much for checking into the Anna & G On The Road in the TQS Daily Blog. 2016 was a wonderful quilting year which you can check out on the Woolie Blog...the 2016 slide show was a wonderful way for me to see how much I had really accomplished. In 2017 I am planning a couple of Quilt Alongs and will continue to set manageable goals. AND...G and I will be hitting the road again searching out the beauty in our country and hopefully we'll run into a few quilters along the way! We keep changing our direction as people share what their states and cities have to offer.  I do have Empty Spools at Asilomar in Pacific Grove, CA, already on the calendar and will be teaching at the Quilters Affair this summer. I hope you will open your quilting heart to a new technique or class and support the quilting movement. There were a lot of changes in the quilting world in 2016, but I feel like quilting is what will keep my spirits up in 2017 and I want to support all aspects of my quilt world.

I also encourage you to pick a word for the year as a focal point for not only how you want your next year to bloom, but also how you would like your quilting life to develop. My word for this year is Detox...I like the power of it and the motivation I feel when I say it!  I am going to detox the negative from my life...whether it is the negative tabloids or negative people, and I am giving up self judgment...totally detoxing it from my life!!!  I love quilting and get such joy from stitching...I no longer want to hear myself in a self-deprecating mantra talking about how much fabric I have...or how I need to finish one thing before starting another...NOPE...no more quilt spanking going on in my life. 2017 will be the year I detox all the negatives out of my life  I hope you will consider what you would want your word to be for 2017.

And so I say again, thank you to all the quilters out there...I really need you in my life :)

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Dear RARE Bear Army,

Each of you have contributed to our extraordinary growth and success this year!

In holding true to our mission to accelerate finding cures for kids with rare disease, we have built the foundation on which we can scale in the new year to touch the lives of even more rare kids, empower more patient families and provide research tools and knowledge that can open doors to finding therapies that can be used in the more immediate future. It is only because of your dedication to this vision did we achieve the following milestones (there were so many - here are just a few of the great things that happened this year because of you!):

•  We have brought awareness and support to 70 rare disease patient communities through our RARE Bear Program with gifting bears to kids across 25 countries. As we have all experienced, the RARE Bear Program helps families at so many levels - bringing joy to the kids, support to the families and education to the community for early diagnosis. In addition, the RARE Bears help us accelerate finding therapies as the building of cohesive patient community is the first step to research programs that can have clinical impact.

•  We have built a grassroots community, the RARE Bear Army that represents 12 countries and over 1000 people making RARE Bears to build community, awareness and early diagnosis that includes an international genetic counseling network to identify kids around the world.  Our program is recognized and supported by Simplicity/Wilton, BERNINA, Spoonflower, The Quilt Show, Goldman Sachs, Zubatkin, Fabrix/Mountain Mist, and many more.  We also have girl scouts, schools, service groups supporting our efforts with hands on help in San Diego.

•  Check out our new RARE Bear Program video! 

•  We had Celebrity Quilters make a stand with us for kids with rare disease and held our first online auction fundraiser and event at our first Houston Quilt Festival (and survived!).  We are so thankful for the donation of time and skill to our cause by each of the 22 Celebrities.

•  We launched the applied advocacy program through CIRM Bridges - California State University San Marcos/Thermo Fisher funded a program to provide training to new stem cell researchers about the obstacles that rare patient families face with the aim that they not only learn about the challenges of rare disease research and application of stem cell research, but also learn to approach their research with the same urgency of parents with rare disease.  We are excited to see the 5 stem cell proposals representing 4 rare diseases (ADCY5, SYNGAP, NBIA, atypical Battens) presented in the new year.  (see photo of Families and students at ThermoFisher training site)

•  We launched the landmark first rare disease patient stem cell program with ADCY5 patient community lowering the barrier of access to tools for researchers working in this field.  (press attached for those who have not seen it!) (see photo of the Grossmans and I visiting ADCY stem cells at CDI/Buck Institute)

This next year’s efforts will be life changing for the patient families as we continue our existing programs and build out our cloud-based knowledge pooling capabilities.  There is some hard work ahead but I know that together we can continue to push the envelope and empower rare patient families with the tools they need.  There are no other individuals than the Mothers and Fathers of kids with rare or undiagnosed disease that will fight with urgency against the time passing by as they watch their child’s disease progress.  It is these parents and patient family communities that we at RARE Science are making a stand as they will be the ones uniting the individual rare/undiagnosed communities to take action.  By empowering rare/undiagnosed patient families with cloud community building tools that include health data storage, reporting/tracking and sharing, we can overcome geographic barriers to obtaining health data leading to biological understanding of rare diseases that can lead to identification of therapies.

We know that further expansion of our data platform to include the capability of permission controlled patient family communities will be instrumental in building the RARE Science framework of offerings and also empowering our families to “own their own data” (medical record storage), self-report and share information across the community.  The self-reporting tool, we feel, is one of the most important aspects of the functionality of the patient community platform not only for the patient families to keep track of the health of their child but pooling this information across the individuals within a community will be fundamental in creating a baseline of understanding of a particular rare disease.  Identifying what is similar or dissimilar across the affected individuals may enable us to elucidate the genetics and other biology that may be directly related to the observable traits.  It is envisioned that the self-reporting tool will allow families to capture information/data in real time at home or through a mobile App.  This information could be used to report back to clinical appointments but most importantly, shared across the patient community and with other stakeholders such as clinicians and researchers, this information could be used to identify new trends revealing new biology that could lead to new therapeutic solutions for these kids.  We envision RARE Science as an entity that fosters and facilitates collaboration and data sharing, providing this neutral community space to bring together all stakeholders, patient families, researchers and clinicians aligning incentives and strategies to accelerate discovery to clinical impact. We have begun, the initial concept and design utilizing the platform, as we have been a grateful beneficiary of volunteers that share an equal passion for this much needed capability to come to life.

Our success in helping more families and more kids next year will be through your continued dedication and commitment to the RARE Science Mission! I am grateful for each of you - your endless volunteered time to RARE Science when I know there are many other things on which you could spend your time.   Instead I feel that we have come together because we all believe in the difference we can have - united, together I know we will be able to do great things for rare disease patient families in the New Year!

Happiness does not come from doing easy work but from the afterglow of satisfaction that comes after the achievement of a difficult task that demanded our best (Theodore Isaac Rubin)

Thank you for all you do!  Sending my warmest wishes to you, your family and friends this special Holiday Season.

All our best,

The RARE Science and RARE Bear Army Team
 

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As an award-winning writer, Lori Lee has written more than 14 books and numerous magazine articles. Her most recent book written with her sister, "Indigo Quilts," covers the history of indigo from Africa to America. Here she talks to Ricky about how she creates her indigo pieces.

Click here to go to Lori Lee's website.

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IAlwaysPicktheThimble.com has a great tutorial for folding different sizes of fabrics so they can be displayed in beautiful harmony on your storage shelves...and you can do it in your pajamas!