*wrapped up in love

A quilt will warm your body and comfort your soul  ~  Quilts made with love age with time, but never lose their warmth  ~ Quilts are like friends, a great source of comfort  ~ Family and friends make a house a home and with a quilt of friends, it will never be cold.

May these things be true on this day for a special friend of ours, Joann.  Joann is a member of our quilting group, who was diagnosed with lung cancer earlier this year. Joann is a giver. A giver of her efforts, of her time, of her money.   I am so grateful for the opportunity to be giving back to her in this way.  

Last year our quilting group decided to do something very special for each other, not knowing if this would be the last year of class or not.  Our fearless leader, Wendie and one other, came up with the idea of what we called "Pass My Bag Quilt".  Each lady of our group was responsible for picking out fabrics of their choosing, their favorite liking.  We were to put our fabrics in a bag that would ultimately be passed from one quilter to the next over the next twelve months finally making its way back to the owner.  Each quilter would make the one pattern of their choice (mine was the flower basket in the pieced block) with each individual quilters fabric as we received their bag.  The pictures below are an example of each quilters block.  We do not have a block made by Joann in our quilts because Joann did not participate in the "Pass the Bag Quilt" project.  Happily, we made Joann one with some of her favorite fabrics without her knowing.

This quilt is so very beautiful. It is beautiful on so many different levels. In fact, today when we took it over to Joann, it became more beautiful simply because of her reaction when she opened and saw that she was loved enough...  A quilter knows all the work that goes into a piece of such work.  Joann knows. She was very touched, a bit overwhelmed perhaps.  Each of the eighteen quilters in our group either made a block or were represented with a pieced block and I had the privilege of putting this under the needle of my machine to quilt.

Several others had made her a beautiful prayer quilt, people she does not know, from somewhere in North Carolina.  The fact that someone who does not  know her while making a prayer quilt for her touched her deeply.  I had never seen a prayer quilt before, but did you know that prayer quilts are tied and the floss is left long... so when you pray you tie a knot. I thought that was sweet. I had never really like tied quilts.. but this puts a whole new spin on it for me.  One of the dear ladies in our group is a knitter as well and had sent Joann a beautiful green knitted hat. Joann said she can hardly wait for it to become winter again so she can wear it!

Will you pray for Joann? She is doing great, better than she had ever thought she would be doing when she first found out of her cancer. She has seven or eight more treatments to go and has hope of  getting a clean bill of health ... I am not sure how the chemo and radiation all works, but will you agree with me that her white blood count will be up where it needs to be so she can have her treatments timely? Will you agree with me that she will continue to feel well and have a high hope for the future? I am sure, because she said so, that Joann had some difficult times initially.  Both internally and dealing individually with her family members on this news. But let me tell you, she is a brave and courageous woman.

On a last note.. Joann goes in every week for chemo, and each week she takes a different quilt to put on the bed she has to be in while getting treatment. This week she will take the "Thursday Girls-Pass the Bag Quilt" along with a matching pillow case to grace the bed she will be in while there.