My Quilt Diet quilt for Anne...

This lady Marion, is my kind of lady! She has only been quilting since January and has 31 quilts finished!!! Are you kidding me! No, seriously. She started quilting to help her with her diet, to have a hobby to distract  her from food! Smart lady, addiction transfer, she has done it well! Marion blogs at my quilt diet, be sure to visit her. I wonder if she will pass 50 by the end of the year??? Good challenge? This pretty quilt is for her sisters friend Anne, who is going through chemo, so sad...

I am so happy to have made this quilt for my sister Aly's friend Anne who has end stage cancer :(

There is not much that can be done for her except to administer chemo every 3 weeks to give her a bit more time with her family.

Anne is 41.

Anne has 3 children.

Her oldest is 18 and her baby is 11.

This quilt is for Anne to take with her to chemo and to cuddle up with on the sofa after.

The following are the "post wash" pictures.

I LOVE how quilts look after they have been washed :)

The raw edge applique looks so cool :)

The quilt is heading off to Anne's Thursday afternoon with all of the love and comfort I can squeeze into it.

Julie's quilt story, cancer quilt...

Julie from Julie's quilts made this amazing quilt in record time for a dear friend who was diagnosed with cancer. Make sure to read this sweet story about how this quilt came together in record time. So sweet of Julie to put this quilt together. Be sure to visit Julie's Quilts to see some of  her fun projects, she sure has some pretty ones!

When you receive a phone call from your Mom in the middle of the day and she asks you where you are, the news is never going to be good. I told her that I was working at home that day and she then asked if K (my daughter)was in the room with me, I responded "no." She then told me that she had some "not so good news." My heart sank as I knew that "no so good" is code for pretty stinky, really bad news. That is when she told me that our dear friend J had just been diagnosed with Stage IV Pancreatic Cancer.

You see, J is more than a dear friend, she is framily, which made the news that much harder to take. Framily is a friend that is like family. J's husband and my father have been dear friends since 6th grade and I grew up with J and her family. J and my Mom were pregnant together. J and T (her husband) were some of the first people that I told when I got engaged. T gave the blessing before dinner at my wedding reception, they were some of the first people that my husband and I told when I was pregnant with first K and then N. They are framily that I know would do anything for us if we ever needed them.

So when my Mom told me that horrific news, I knew that I needed to sew something and I needed to get it finished quick. I immediately hopped in the car with K and headed to the fabric store. On my way there, my Aunt N called me. She is the quilter who inspired me to start quilting and told me that she wanted to help me with the quilt and told me about a quilt that she made for her sister-in-law. With that J's quilt was born. I returned home and got on the internet while my Aunt headed to her quilt store clear across the country (California...and I live in NY) and I looked at fabric while she looked in her store ((Oops-A-Daisy by Keiki for Moda) . My Aunt N and her quilt group made the nine patch blocks on the front, cut my inner border and made my binding.

Fabric was put in the mail and I immediately started to reach out to J's family, friends and framily to have them send me their left hand print. I set out to make J a quilt with the hand prints of all those who love her and support her...to wrap her in love while she kicked cancer in its behind. The response was overwhelming and I knew that I was not going to have enough fabric. While on a business trip, I stopped at one of my favorite little quilt stores and low and behold, they had just received some fabric from this line in the prior day. The fabric for the nine patches on the back as well as the cute white flowers on the back were added to the quilt.

There are 47 handprints and puppy prints that were sent to me from all across the country. The out pouring of love for J was amazing. I had never appliqued a quilt before in my short quilting time and took this on knowing that it was for someone who my family loves and is praying for. I finished the quilt in 3.5 weeks, start to finish, which is a record for me. Through every snip of the scissors, stitch that was made (and ripped out- there were quite a few as I quilted half of the quilt and ripped it all out because it was not good enough for J), prayers were said for her healing.

My Dad and his friend, also part of the framily, flew to Florida to deliver the quilt to J in September. I wish I could have been there with them, but know that J was wrapped in our love, support and our prayers.

I thought she was the one who could beat cancer, that she would be one of the 5% that do, but God had other plans, J went to heaven on Tuesday, November 8, 2011. I hope that the quilt can bring comfort to her family just as it brought her comfort during her battle.

We love you J!

Chemo Quilt from days and years...

Kim from days and years  created this amazing quilt in record time 10 days! (during her busy life). She made it for a Aunt who is going through chemotherapy. What a wonderful thing to do! Her blog is full of crafting, sewing, cooking, gardening among other things. Make sure to go visit her. 

Chemo Quilt

How to make a quilt in 10 days while working a full-time job, and doing a girls’ cabin weekend in the middle of it all (a.k.a. quick ‘n dirty style):

Day 1: Decide, upon hearing that your dear auntie who was recently diagnosed with ovarian cancer will be starting chemo in 10 days, that you MUST make her a care package, complete with handmade lap quilt. Make plans to hit the fabric store after your New Year’s Day date with your husband. Curse the universe when you realize that the fabric store closes too early for you to get there.

Day 2: In a 20 minute between-appointments break at work, run into your favorite local fabric store. Grab several bolts of your favorite Anna Maria Horner fabric, thank your lucky stars that there isn’t a line at the cutting table, and walk out with about 1/2 yard each of 6 quilting cottons and 1 yard each of voile. On the drive home, wrestle with the eternal question: to prewash or not to prewash?? Opt to prewash.

Day 3: Decide that you don’t have time to use an elaborate pattern. Start laying out the fabric on your living room floor, keeping the pieces as large as possible. Time is of the essence… planning and piecing eats time. Misplace your scissors. Burst into tears a few times. Ponder the thought of losing yet another family member so soon… Start ripping fabric. Discover that your plan for the backing won’t work. Dig through stash, find more fabric. Assemble the top and the back. Cry yourself to sleep.

Day 4: Make your quilt sandwich, using organic cotton batting and basting spray to hold everything together. Try not to spray your dog, because he keeps trying to “help.” Gather quilting needles, thread, curse yourself for failing (again) to buy a thimble.

Day 5: Go out of town with your girlfriends. Take a day off from working on the quilt. Say a silent “thank you” to the universe for blessing you with such great friends.

Day 6: Everyone knows that girls’ weekends are filled with wine, chatting, more wine, more chatting, and other sedentary activities (except that one time when there was snow – we went snowshoeing!). Use this opportunity to start the hand quilting. Work on the stitching whenever sitting down, which ends up being about 10 hours over the whole day.

Day 7: Continue stitching on the drive home, and for the rest of the evening. It helps if your husband is sleeping on the couch.

Day 8: Stitch stitch stitch!

Day 9: Yes, more stitching! Finish! Stand back and realize – whoah. Those colors are, um. Bold. Loud. Not exactly subtle. Then again, there’s nothing subtle about cancer.

Day 10: Trim the edges. Realize that the failure to measure anything while assembling results in less-than-square corners. Decide you don’t care. Make double-fold bias binding. Machine-stitch to the quilt. Wash and dry!

My sister and I delivered the care package to my aunt last weekend, right after she finished the first treatment. She loves it, and refuses to bring it with her to her treatments.  That’s alright. It can stay at home.

In case you find yourself in this situation and are looking for chemo care package ideas, here is what we came up with:

Large tote bag

Slim expanding file folder

Business card folder

Notebook/journal

Fun pens

iTunes gift card

Extension cord (for her iPad)

Hard candies (sugar-free Jolly Ranchers, Werther’s, mints, honey-lemon lozenges)

Smartwater

Water flavorings (Crystal Lite packets, Mio water flavor drops)

Various teas (Smooth Move, Ginger, Peppermint)

Crystalized ginger

Assorted hand lotions

Lip balm

A tea kettle & pretty mug

Cozy lounge pants, t-shirts, and zip-front hoodies

I feel like there was more in there… I can’t remember what else though. We made a pot of vegetable soup and a pan of veggie lasagna and froze those in single servings. We also cooked some frozen fruit, then re-froze it in ice cube trays. We thought those might come in handy if her white blood cell counts go low, and she wants to keep doing smoothies.

Now we just need to say our prayers and call in our favors and hope that she comes through this as strong as ever.

A Quilt for Kelly

One of my best friend's mom, Kelly, was recently diagnosed with cancer.  At the end of July she was diagnosed with duodenal cancer which is very rare and serious.  Chemotherapy didn't offer her very optimistic chances, after doing research and help from family and friends she's decided to pursue a promising alternative treatment.  However, this treatment requires $25,000 upfront.  Her loving family has thrown her a fundraiser where she lives and they're throwing another this weekend  in North Salt Lake City, Utah.  (You can see more about her story HERE.)

I have felt so bad for my friend Ashlie.  She is one of my favorite people ever, and it's really hard to see your friend go through something like this.  Ashlie is the oldest in her family and she's only 27!!!!  She needs her mommy for many years to come.

I was really excited when I found out there would be a silent auction at her mom's fundraisers, and a real way I could help.  This quilt is in honor of Kelly:

I settled pretty quickly on the design.  Simple but more interest than just squares.  Bigger than I originally planned, it's a good size at 51" x 78".  I went back and forth about colors. I wanted to appeal to the broadest crowd.  I ultimately went for a bright and cheery fall palette.  I started with my Robert Kaufman Metro Market prints and began pulling from there.  There's a lot of different collections in this quilt, Going Coastal, Peacock Lane, Sanctuary, Veranda and Michael Miller Solids.

Simple quilting, about 2-3 inches in on each block. Straight-line.

Although I love the back, I hope I didn't make a mistake!  I hope it isn't too modern for some.  I really just love to piece my backs and have a lot of fun tying all the prints together in a non-traditional way.  Looking back I probably should have kept it more simple.  Oh well :/

I threw in a couple more things that could be auctioned off.  One of our Oh Baby! patterns, that is great for beginner sewers.  I included all the necessary fabric as well, again Metro Market and coordinating Groovy fat quarters.

Then a little set of fabric flowers.  You can never go wrong with these right? :)

Here's the whole lot.  Hopefully these can help bring Kelly closer to the treatment she needs.

For those of you who live in Utah you can attend the fundraiser!  

It's Friday October 28th in North Salt Lake.  

There will be dancing, food, costumes and an auction  

If you want more information see HERE.

A Mosaic of Hope Quilt from Caroline

Happy Monday everyone! :)  I hope you've all had happy and productive weekends.  I am slowly crossing things off my to-do list, more pattern writing, turning appliqué digital, a quick baby shower gift and binding to cut, but for the most part I feel ahead of the game.  Ask me how I feel in two weeks :)  

Today's feature is Caroline from Artfully @ Atelier Caroline.  She's got a really fun blog, with cute tutorials, my favorite one is this.  Today she's sharing a really great quilt but with a much bigger meaning for someone important in her life.

This is the project that took up the largest chunk of my time over the past 2 week. The quilt is for my father in law. I knew I wanted to make a quilt for him when we found out how seriously sick he is. What I didn't know then is that one of the side effects of the treatments he is receiving is that you get very sensitive to cold. So it turns out this quilt will be not only a gift for moral support but also a great help during the treatments! 

When I started I didn't have a particular design in mind other than I wanted to put together all kinds of shades of blue. There are 5 shades of blue on each side. At this point it is hard to call one side is the top and one is the bottom, I love how both sides turned out. The blue in my mind represent hope and the square shape strength. 

Even as I was piecing the first side I had not decided how the border would be. I even started laying out blocks for the second side when the idea came to use one extra navy blue block on each border to echo the diamond layout I was working on.

The quilting is very simple, just in the ditch. I think it works quite well with the solid fabrics I picked out

This past weekend we had a very spring like weather and after sweeping our back patio I took advantage of the lovely light to take some pictures that show the true colors of the quilt. 

I believe my father in law will like it - even though his favorite color is green

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/