Quiltingboard Forums - the most appreciated quilt

several of you know that michele, who works for me, has a sister in law, moe who was diagnosed with lung cancer around thanksgiving 2010.

michele is a new quilter, and we decided we would make a red (moe's favorite color) quilt, and a matching tote bag, for her to take to chemo etc, because she is always cold & being ill sure didn't make that any better.

we planned out what we were going to make btwn christmas & new years. i wound out being out sick with bronchitis the whole first week of january.. i came back to work on 1/10 & michele told me that we would not have time to make the quilt.. moe had been to the oncologist, they had run tests & found the cancer had metastazed (sp) in her bones and they only gave her 2 weeks to 2 months.

i told her we would still make it, but it would have to be quick. moe was going to be coming home.. so since michele was going to be busy helping there, so i told her i would take care of the the quilt. tues 1/11 michele brought in the black squares she had cut, the fleece we had planned to use as backing, and some photos she wanted on the quilt.

i took it all home & cut & pieced some simple 4 patchs... the next day wed 1/12 wound up being a snow day, the first one i have had in 15+ years. so i finished the piecing, quilted it really simply, just diagonally thru the squares, glued on (love my glue stick) the photos, ran a dense zig zag around them, brought the fleece around as a binding, stitched it down.. called it done.

i brought it to work the next day 1/13, michele brought it over to moe that night & told me friday am that moe loved the quilt. i was happy to hear that, as we all are when someone likes something we made. i didn't think much more about it.

until today. moe lost her battle with cancer last thru 2/10. i went to the wake today, and cannot explain how stunned i was to see that simple, quick & done, quilt draped over the lower half of the casket, with the photo blocks arranged over moe's lap...

i went thru the reception line, where michele told moe's mother, daughter, brothers & sister, "this is dawn, she made the quilt" all of them told me how much they appreciated the effort i made and how much comfort that quilt had brought to moe. it was the most humbling thing.

so i guess the motto is, you just never know how the simple gift of a quilt can make such an impact. i tried to explain this to dh. he didn't get it, but i know you all will.

Moe's quilt, it looks like the photos are on the bottom, but that is the top, so they would be were moe could see them

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the photos & their "frames"

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how it worked across my lap

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