Dawn's Quilt

Dawn's quilt

It is heart breaking to find out that a close friend has been diagnosed with cancer. There is much hope at the beginning that a recover can be made, even when it seems hopeless, miracles do happen, and we always want to think positively.
The process of chemo and radiation is daunting and very difficult at best. I thought a lap sized quilt would be a comfort to my friend while she fought her battle.

I had some red, grey and beige 5 inch squares that I thought might make a happy, good looking quilt to cuddle under when a person was feeling blue.  The grey signified sadness, the red signified that battle to be fought and won, and the beige signified the dawn of a new day as the enemy was overcome.

Because of the time crunch, I thought a simple pattern was best. 
The pattern is called .....
The squares are split diagonally and sewn back together with a strip of grey, then split vertically and another grey strip is sewn in between the two pieces to form the blocks.

I cut out 5 inch grey squares and the edge triangles to sew the blocks together on the point.

I arranged and re-arranged the 36 blocks until I was happy with the appearance of the quilt top. 

I took photos and then marked each row, (covering them with a towel to discourage my kitties from sitting on them.)

12 rows of  blocks = 39 1/2 X 39 1/2" 

I like how the blocks looked when they were together but I wanted to add a border to make the quilt top a bit bigger. 
I cut 2 /12 inch strips and added the inner grey border. (43 1/2 X 43 1/2" square)

2 " inner grey border

pressing the quilt top

Next I cut 2 1/2 inch strips of red fabric from my stash for another border.  (47 1/2" square)

Then I auditioned a few fabrics for the outer border, but the best one seemed to be the same grey/tall grass fabric as used in the blocks. (Cut 4" border, quilt top = 55" square) 

I bought some light grey "Cuddle" for the back, then pinned it together, ready to be quilted.

I machine quilted (free motion) the flowers in a flower pattern as shown below:

Heart quilting on the grey blocks

I used an air erase pen to draw continuous hearts on the grey blocks, then free motion quilted them.

Heart quilting on grey blocks

My wonderfully always dependable Janome 7700 suddenly died on April 26! My friend was in stage 4 and only had a short time to live. How was I going to get this quilt finished in time?!
I frantically dug out my old mostly manual Pfaff machine.  

I used my triangle ruler and drew "echo" lines on the triangle blocks. My Pfaff (Select 1546) was giving me a lot of tension problems and I ended up ripping out so many terrible seams. It was heart breaking. I guess it was a reflection of the situation surrounding the quilt.  :(

I was determined to get it finished. My Janome required a new mother board which had to be sent from Japan ( 4 to 6 weeks, they said.) I didn't have 4 to 6 weeks to spare!

Back of the quilt 

I traced triangles with my ruler ( air erase pen) and slowly quilted them all around the red border. 

Next I free motion quilted the outer grey border (after looking it up in the Pfaff manual, as I hadn't used it in years) with leaves and vines. April 30th all the quilting was finally done and I was please, overall with the results.

 Last of all I cut red edging strips  2 1/4" width, folded in half) and bound the edge. 

The quilt was completely done except for a label on May 4. My friend Dawn passed away after a difficult, valiant struggle on May 8. The family had a wonderful celebration of Dawn's life on May 26, 2018.

Many tears, memories and love went into this quilt for Dawn. I made the label on the back dedicated to her two young grandchildren and gave it to them to use when they were feeling blue and missing their grandma.