A Cancer Killing Quilt for Rosemarie

Do you know Emily from Mommy's Nap Time?  She's been a great reader for quite some time, we always have so much fun checking out her projects.  She participates in a lot of great swaps, like a Doll Quilt Swap (eeek for cuteness!) and making adorable things for her adorable girls.  Today she's got a very personal story to share with us showing us once again how quilts can bring much more than warmth.

These two quilts were made with love, with the help of 33 people across 7 countries. Here's how they came to be. My niece Rosemarie is four years old and has spent three of those years fighting a battle against cancer. She's a sweet tough little girl, and her treatments take her and her parents several hours away from home 4 days a week. I have wanted to make Rosemarie a quilt since I started quilting about two years ago, but I knew it'd be a big process, not only emotionally, but also because I knew I couldn't make just one quilt; I'd need to make one for her big sister Katee too!

Feeling like this was too big of a project to take on myself, I started a flickr group and enlisted the help of my new online sewing friends. They sure stepped up! In a matter of weeks I had enough blocks sent to me to make two beautiful quilts (some generous friends even sent extra fabric along to help with the backing and binding!). I'd never known what connections could be made online. I've never met a single one of these ladies in person, but they poured out their love and prayers into each block. My sister's best friend even made one!

These quilts came together with so much prayer stitched in. They were only my second and third tries at free motion quilting and it was such a peaceful prayerful process. By Thanksgiving, they were both assembled needing only the binding to be sewn down, we brought them along on the road trip home so that my neice Katee (the 10 year old) could help me sew the binding of her sister's quilt. The last step, before finishing the bindings, I used a fabric pen to write prayers for the girls in the seam allowances of the bindings. Even if they don't know exactly what's written there, they will always be able to know that they are not only figuratively, but also literally wrapped in prayer.

I know that these quilts can't really bring healing to Rosemarie. I know that they can't cure the loneliness that Katee feels when her family is away from her for her sister's treatments. But what these quilts can do is bring the world together in prayer, and in love. I hope that the girls continue to remember that. Thirty-three ladies put a bit of their hearts into this project. I pray that the girls will always be able to feel that love.

Thanks for taking the time to read my story!

~Emily
Flickr: emedoodle
Blog: http://mommysnaptime.blogspot.com/