An Independant Life

Meet Kristen, she is 11 now and she has Down Syndrome. Her parents (my niece and her husband) are trying to make sure that as an adult she can live a strong, independant life. So they have to setup a trust fund for her - and just getting the help of an attorney to do this is an expensive venture.

To help, I now have an etsy shop, http://www.inallthingsart.etsy.com/. (Link is on this blog.) 30% of all sales will go to help Kristen. And I have a basic machine quilting service (ie...3 allover designs offered). From that service now thru Feb 09, 30% will also go to Kristen's trust. (Leave a comment with request for information/pricing if you are interested...thanks.)

This is what my niece shared with me.....

"We are having to set up a special needs trust for her when she turns 18, b/c the way the laws are set up, she can not have any more then $2K to her name otherwise she loses all of her disability benefits. So we spoke with a special needs planner that got us in touch with a special trust lawyer that will set it up for us- but its not cheap. So we are hoping to at least get enough $ going to pay for the lawyer to set up the trust. There are so many things that we were not aware of that really could have negatively impacted Kristen's ability to take care of herself as she gets older. A lot of slightly disabled people like Kristen like to get jobs and be self-sufficient to some extent, but it seems the gov't puts road blocks in their path to make it that much more difficult. I was talking to a woman here at work that I walk with- her brother was born with an oxygen deficiency, so he is mildly retarded, and when they went to get benefits for him, they said he made too much $ to qualify even for Medicare- b/c he worked a minimum wage job- she was completely unaware of the special trust that they could set up for him- b/c no-one tells anyone anything. They just deny claims- and don't give alternative options to people. So her brother refused to quit his job, and is w/o any insurance coverage. She said that she is going to look into the trust option. We were lucky that we were introduced to this special needs planner- otherwise I feel we would have been facing the same problem when Kristen aged out of our insurance coverage."

Pet and Animal Portraits - in Acrylic

Here are some pet and animal portraits I have painted....just wanted to share. When living in WV, we lived close to the Cacapon River - a wonderfully dynamic river - fast and furious with the spring thaws, slow and dribbling in late summer. So it was a wonderful place to find river rocks. Many clients enjoyed having their pets painted on these rocks.

A Finished Piece!! Wildflowers at Midnight

This top was shown in an earlier post, unfinished. It is now finished!!! Yay!!! It has become 'Wildflowers at Midnight'. This piece started merely because I had leftover bits of pieces in blacks and darks from another project. (The details of that project escape me right now - oh, if I only had a brain!)

After the top was 'pieced', it desperately needed something.....so I went a little bonkers with the quilting - using many colors, many textures. Then drew in more wildflowers with the quilting stitches. These became subtle, seen but not quite seen, images and textures.....and this piece had an identity - a walk at midnight! Have you noticed at night, when you want to look at something, you have to look beside it to see it. If you look directly at it in the dark, it disappears. That is the effect I discovered from the quilting on this top.

But the bottom right corner still needed something - and so I added a wildflower when the light from a bright moon stikes it - it shines and glistens with color and light. So I recycled the reflective plastic from Folgers' Select coffee bags, cutout leaves and petals and machine appliqued the plastic plant on the quilt top and it became Wildflowers at Midnight.

Gifts, etc.

This is a twin sized quilt I made several years ago - with holes in it to display teddy bears. I plan on making a few small wallhangings using this same technique - with holes for heads and arms - to give to children on my Christmas list this year. Just a fun way to display teddy bears.

I am having lots of fun making these mini framed quilts - so they are on my list of gifts this year for family and friends. They work up quickly - and I have found some cute frames that have the words 'FRIEND' , 'FAMILY' , 'LOVE' printed on the frames - the start of a great gift I think!

Quilted tissue box cover - on this one, I did some pen & ink raccoons, then fused on wood and leaves. These covers are easy to make and just the quilting adds enough body to the cover that it stays on well - doesn't need to be hooked under the box in any way.

For these placemats, I started with an oriental fabric - picked out by someone else and I thought it was UGLY! Which made it a wonderful exercise for me....try starting with a fabric you hate and work it into something you like. It actually became addictive, finding how many fabrics I could add to turn this ugly oriental into pretty placemats. Seven are shown here with my Imari plate on top.

Christmas stockings are an easy project. This one, I painted the Santa face with acrylics on fabric with a curly-cue print which became his beard. Quilted the top of the stocking, added a single piece of material for the back, binding all around, add a top cuff and finished.

Just wanted to share one more painting on cloth using the Tsukineko inks....can you tell I am a big fan? All painted using their Fantastix applicators - great to use for the texture of hair/fur. My male Jack Russell, Feerless, gave me the ultimate compliment on this painting - he started barking when he first saw it - it is life-sized.

Miniature Quilts - Framed

Time to recycle some old picture frames. Throw in some small scraps of fabric, inks, colored pencils, wool batting......and what have you got? Miniature quilts in a frame.

What fun these are!!

Painting this small with these inks is not really difficult. The Tsuniko inks (in the jars) are very thin, watery. But I recently bought the Fabrico ink refills. (Same pigment inks.) They are much thicker so I can apply them with a paintbrush, size 00!

I squeezed some in the cut bottom of a plastic bottle - about a month ago. The ink is thicker now - but still not dried out. Just great to work with.

And this wool batting is wonderful. Quilting this small, it still holds its loft, so soft and smooth!

Portrait

'My Favorite Dress'.....painted with inks on fabric, size 23"x18". This was my submission for the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2009 at the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian.

Received word this week it was not accepted but wished me well in my portrait career. Hmmmm.... a career in portraits......goodness, way too much stress! In '06 and '07 I painted commissioned portraits - about 30 or so - and so stressful. But this was fun submitting a piece to such a prestigious competition and I am grateful for the opportunity to play/work at my art.