Today is the Day!

I am featured over at Quilt Story, www.quiltstory.blogspot.com

Miss Amanda

K has been dancing for just about 2 years now and throughout that time, Miss Amanda has been one of her teachers.  K adores Miss Amanda and when she announced that she was pregnant, I immediately got to work.  This quilt was made with scraps from an earlier quilt using the Easy as 10 quilt pattern by Me and My Sister Designs along with their fabric, Amelia (one of my all time favorites!!).  This pattern has become one of my go to patterns for a quick and easy quilt. 

Sorry for the sideways quilt....blogger is being a little strange. 

Quilt is Amelia fabric by Me and My Sister Designs using their Easy as 10 pattern with bamboo batting and an all over stipple quilting.  The pink stripe in the binding is another Me and My Sister Designs fabric, but I don't remember which one.

Block #1 Complete

My Quilt Story

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!

Ryan's Quilt

I purchased this fabric to make a quilt for my nephew (husband's side of the family) and my sister saw the fabric and fell in love.  She begged and pleaded for me to save the fabric for when she had a baby.  As any awesome big sister would do, I save the fabric and made my nephew a quilt out of different fabric.

When my sister got pregnant I was so, so excited for her and also could not wait to make her quilt.  Needless to say, she loved it!

Judy's Quilt

This was a commissioned quilt that my Mother-in-law had me make for her Mom for her 80th birthday.  I have to say I struggled with this quilt because I was not in love with the fabric.  While I knew that Judy would love the fabric, it is very outside of my normal bright and colorful quilts.  I love a pattern that has minimal scraps and knew that this was the pattern for me.  There were just enough scraps to make a pillow too!  My Mother-in-law like the fabric and I was able to find it from a few different vendors and got to work. 

I pieced and quilted this one.  The fabric is Strawberry Fields by Moda with bamboo batting. 

Red Dress Quilt

After I finished the quilt for J I started this quilt.  I am a Chapter Advisor for Alpha Phi and wanted to donate something for our annual Red Dr.ess Gala.  Parents and sisters attend this event to raise money for the Alpha Phi Foundation.  I knew that I needed to make a quilt that was fun and symbolized our philanthropy.  I found this cute pattern on Etsy and went to work. 

I am proud to say that the quilt brought in quite a bit of money (not sure of the exact total) and one of our sisters is the proud owner!  I was so happy to find out that the women love the quilt so much that they used it as a decoration during one of our formal recruitment events!

(I love a pieced back!!)

The fabric is "Sew Cherry" by Bee in my Bonnet with bamboo batting and quilted with a meandering pattern.