Quilters are so hard on themselves. This is beautiful. I'm sorry your friend had to give up quilting, but how wonderful that she shared her stash and you used it in such a great way. I'm sure this gave her great satisfaction.
I have 2 brothers who are artists. I always felt that my work was insignificant and not anything next to the stuff they did. One day I gave my brother a simple log cabin quilt (all in blues) for his birthday. I tried to downplay it and, with tears in his eyes, he told me it was outstanding. He said he could not understand how someone could take some pieces of fabric, see a project in it and then make something like a quilt. I could not believe he was saying this - the artist was impressed by my work! Since that day I have thought differently about what we do. We are artists, we do create great things. They may have imperfections, we may need to work on our techniques, but they are ALL works of art. We make them with our hands, from our heart and give them as gifts - we need to stop being so hard on ourselves.