Quiltingboard Forums - Painted quilt for terminal friend

I have taught painting classes (oil, acrylics and watercolors) for over 12 years and along the way I have made some very good friends. About 9 of us are particularly close and we get together on our own monthly just for fun, to visit, eat dinner, and work on any type of craft they want. The idea is just to get together and enjoy each others company.

One of our group has been battling cervical cancer and found out recently that it has spread to her lungs, stomach and lymph nodes. She's in her 3rd round of chemo and her doctors told there this last round is just to prolong her life so she can get her affairs in order. This is one of the sweetest women you will ever meet, and what's hard for me is that she is part of my own family, since my sister is engaged to her nephew.

Anyway - I suggested we make a quilt for her to take to chemo or to cuddle on the couch at home and they were all for it. I gave each of them a 10 1/2 plain white fabric square to paint a flower on, and I would make a quilt out of them. Keep in mind I've only been doing this a couple of years so I knew it wasn't going to be fancy but it would be functional.

We gave it to her last night and she started crying, which of course made the rest of us cry.

I used a green mottled fabric to outline the blocks, a white tone-on-tone paisley for the white inner border, and a very simple purple with white flowers for the outer border and backing. It was hard to find fabrics that wouldn't take away from the beautfiul painted flowers, though, but everyone was happy with how it turned out.