Quilt show

So many favourites, so hard to choose.  Amy at Park City Girl is hosting the Blogger's Quilt Festival today through Oct 16th. She asked us to post a picture of our favorite quilt and tell it's story.

This quilt is one of my favourite ones.  It is bright, and cheerful - it's actually much brighter in person than in the photo.  When I laid it out in my room before shipping, it just brightened it right up.

The story behind this quilt goes back to my very first quilting experience.  An on-line friend was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer late in 2003.  A group of us from an e-mail list decided to make her a friendship quilt.  We couldn't provide our support in person, so we wanted to send her something to remind her how much we all cared.   I had never quilted before, although I had learned to sew as a girl and was making most of my children's clothes at that time.   I decided to participate, and made my very first quilt block.  The colours for her quilt were her favourite ones - purple and green.   All the blocks - about 48 of them - we assembled by one of our members and the quilt was delivered in 2004.

She went through a lot in the next year or so, a double mastectomy, reconstructive surgery, chemotherapy, but was declared free of the cancer.  And I was completely hooked on quilting.  I have been quilting ever since that first block.   Because of how I got started, I try to donate some of my quilts to groups that support cancer research and help people dealing with cancer in their lives.  In particular, I have donated a quilt to theQuilt.com every year for their auction, since 2006.

In 2007, Michelle's cancer came back.  In her bones, in her kidneys, and her battle started again.  Again, I couldn't do anything directly for her, as she lived on the other side of the continent.  So I decided that my next donation to theQuilt would be in her honour.  I happened across a beautiful pattern, from Northcott fabrics and I decided to do it in purple & green for Michelle.  The border fabric jumped out at me, and I worked from that basis, with much help from the ladies at several quilt shops.   After a couple of false starts and some fabric changes, I had what I wanted.  Started the quilt in 2007, and finished it in December 2008 - just in time for the 2009 Quilt Auction.  Sadly, Michelle passed away in June 2008.  The quilt was donated to the auction in her memory.

My mother was visiting while I was finishing this quilt, and she fell in love with it when she saw it. She even helped me finish the hand-stitching on the binding.  It was obvious that she would have loved to have the quilt, but it was promised for the auction, and I packed it up and shipped it off.  For the next few months she liked to remind me how I'd given away "her" quilt :)

I thought I would make her a new one, which she would love just as much.  I hunted and hunted, and even started a quilt, but none of the options I found could compare to that bright cheerful quilt she had seen at Christmas.   So, when the quilt came up for auction this summer, I bid on my own creation.  I won the auction, and had the quilt shipped directly to my mother just in time for her birthday.  It now has a place of honour on her bed, brightening up her room.

Click on the link below to stop by the quilt festival and see what other quilters have on their blogs.