Thursday, June 27, 2013

"+" and wonky squares quilt for breast cancer recovery

My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer a few weeks ago.  The schedule for doctor and hospital visits has been (thankfully) rapid, and she just had surgery yesterday.  I wanted to make her a lap quilt for the surgery recovery and chemotherapy, but did not have a lot of time (major understatement!) to finish something.

I knew I wanted to use some sort of cheery fabric, but not too fluorescent as is the trend at the moment, because neither of us likes the early 90's look for home decor.
So, I tried pre-cuts for the first time.  I got 2 charm packs of Glimma and 2 of Bella from Missouri Star Quilt Company - these had like 42 squares in each of them.  Both fabric lines are by Lotta Jansdotter.
I also picked up a jelly roll and charm pack of white fabric as well.  Then I started brainstorming, which looked something like this:

I was going to use the jelly roll strips to surround the solid squares and use the patterned fabrics to make a plus-sign grid around these squares.
It seemed like everything was working ok... until I realized I was 0.5" too short for the solid-white squares because I forgot about seam allowances when I sewed the jelly rolls to the squares. Soo... I decided to go wonky and log-cabined extra jelly roll strips around two sides of each square, then cut the square down to the correct size to produce randomly non-centered color squares:

And I ended up with something that I found more pleasing than my original design.
 I wanted to do something special for the back.  I liked the pink I used on the front, and how it went with the gray/brown patterns from the Lotta Jansdotter collections.  So after messing around a bit, I put together a breast cancer ribbon combined with a heart.  I had to commandeer some light pink fabric from my stepdaughter's project, but there was extra and hey, I paid for it anyway :)
 Once again, the cat "helped" a great deal.  She and I managed to completely break this cheapo Singer machine trying to finish the binding the morning my mom went to the hospital for surgery.
 And here it is!  I am very happy with the results, especially since I was able to get the quilt sandwich to work so that I didn't have any wrinkles in the back.  I basically have to tape everything down to the carpet in the living room, which is not convenient for anyone but is the only way this seems to work for me.
Front:
 Back:
Best of all, my mom loved it and they already used it to cover her up and prop her up in the car on the way home after surgery. 

7 comments:

Sara said...

So sorry to hear about your mom's cancer. I pray that she has a quick turn around time from her surgery. Also,that the cancer is completely removed and she remains cancer free.

You are a wonderful daughter to make this quilt for your mom! I know she must truly LOVE it!

Laura B said...

You're doing some great work here.

Laura B said...

You're doing some great work here.

Laura B said...

You're doing some great work here.

Karen said...

Your quilt is really lovely, I hope your mum is ok after her surgery. My Aunt had surgery a couple of years back and my mum and I went on a fund raising spree for Breast Cancer Care. I made some pink ribbon bunting at the time. xxx Visiting from Link a Finish Friday.

Paula said...

Your quilt is beautiful - especially the back. I also have a quilt from my sister when I began surgery and chemo three years ago for colon cancer. The quilt has traveled everywhere with me, cancer center and hospital, many many times and always brings me joy and comfort. I wish your mom and family strength and faith in the days ahead - you can beat this!

Unknown said...

I admire what you are doing for the name of cancer. I actually had quick question about your blog and was hoping you could email me back when you get the chance, thanks!

Emily