The quilt book is finally done – thank goodness!  Much of my recent time has been spent waiting on necessary information needed to publish the book.  I didn’t get the information, so I went without it. What this means is that any sales profits from now until I do get the necessary information will come to me and I will forward it to the hospital. All proceeds from the sale of this book will go to the hospital foundation.

I’m sorry it took so long to get to this point, but a lot of it was out of my control. It takes less than a week to print the book once you place an order, so there should be time for the book to arrive in time for Christmas.

My sincerest apologies, and I hope it was worth the wait.  Click on the badge below and it will take you to the page to view and place your order.

Glass Quilt – …

“Earth, Air, Fire a…

By Toni M. Johnson

Book Preview

They want to make sure that this gift has a special place and not just placed in a hallway – they want it to be placed in a destination spot where people go specifically to look at it. I toured the hospital last week with Brindy and we picked out a spot as you enter the NICU, which has a homey theme with a quilt framed on the wall, a tree with leaves, each containing a photo of a baby who was in the NICU,  and a family room that looked like a cottage at the entry doors, etc. 

Brindy had asked earlier if the quilt would be placed behind something protective so the children would not be able to touch it. I told her it was going to be very textural and that the children would be welcomed to touch – I’ll place the safest to touch pieces down low.  During their decision making process, they had taken a look at this blog and read about some of the pieces and asked if there would be something about each piece that people would be able to read since they are also about education, which I had mentioned in my contact email. I told her I’d be happy to put something together. I was thinking a world map that shows where everybody is from might be fun to include. They (the Vice President, Marketing Director, and Executive Director, plus herself) very much enjoyed looking at the blog, clicking on individual pictures and reading your thoughts.

The Children’s Hospital just opened up in 2002. They are the only children’s hospital between Seattle and Minneapolis – in a straight line between the two points (the hospital confirmed this for me). They are growing and will be doing some construction in the next few years and would like to build a special spot for the quilt – so the placement of the quilt now is possibly a temporary location. They are also willing to place a plaque listing everybody’s name who participated in this project.

If you’d like to learn more about Sacred Heart Children’s Hospital, click here.  There will be more updates was we get closer to an unveiling, which we are hoping will take place in January.

1. Download it from Tony Smith’s website – thank you Tony! The downloaded file (approximately 7 MB) can then be saved to disk or you can go to your choice of online printers to have the poster printed.

http://www.amsmith.com/quilt/quiltposter2007.pdf or http://amsmith.com/quilt/quiltposter2007.jpg
To download on a pc, right click and Save As or Save Target As and save it someplace on your computer. Mac people are on their own for figuring out how to save it.

http://www.fullsizeposters.com/ is one option for online printers. Google poster printing for other options. For those living in Canada, Wal-Mart and Staples might be options to check into for printing to avoid postage from the US.

2. Order from the following Storefront, which is set up with the file already uploaded and posters ready to order. All you have to do is tell it what one dimension you want is and it will adjust the other dimension. For example: you want your poster to be 16 x 20, type in 16 for the width and it will automatically format the height to the correct size.

The artists were given no constraints other than keeping their tile to an 8″ x 8″ size.  Pieces range from a single layer of glass up to 2 1/2″ thick.  Artists could choose to interpret one element or all four elements in a single tile.  Most participants chose to represent all four of the elements, with water coming in second.  Only two people were brave enough to portray air, with five people portraying fire in their piece. 

This is an international collaborative effort with artists from South Africa, Finland, Northern Ireland, Saskatchewan, British Columbia and Ontario, Canada and Washington, Oregon, Nebraska, California, Wisconsin, Indiana, Virginia, North Carolina, Illinois, Ohio, Alabama, Massachusetts, Florida, plus others, in the United States.

Congratulations to all the participants for a job well done! 

Toni Johnson, Coordinator

I present Earth, Air, Water and Fire:

Click on the individual pieces below to be taken to that artist’s page for a closer look at their work, how-to’s and statement about their piece.