The Greatest is LOVE

This wall hanging quilt was a stretch for me in so many ways!

Before I moved to Colorado, I lived in a little town in Ontario, Canada, where I was employed at a lovely quilt shop. The owners were and are dear friends of mine, and always volunteering their time and other things to the community.

One of the events held in the quilt shop each fall is the "The Quilt: 30 Hour Quilt Marathon" which raises funds to provide emotional, informational and physical support for people living with cancer, their family and friends. This is sponsored by Northcott's Quest for a Cure. Here is Northcott's Link: http://www.northcott.net (then click on Quest for the Cure, bottom right)
Here is the link to the site if you would like to learn how you can help your local quilt shop participate in this fabulous event: http://www.thequilt.com/

Anyway, since I moved before the event was to take place, I decided to send something they could put in their Silent Auction, which was running concurrently with the marathon.

For inspiration, I started with what I had learned from "Simply Stunning Woven Quilts" by Anna Faustino. I loved the look the quilts she made! Then I chose an array of batiks (which I LOVE) and a lot of pink... with a fat quarter of "love" fabric for the middle. When it was all finished, I attached the pink ribbon and a heart.

I say this quilt was a stretch for me because I had never really taken a pattern and just used it as a starting point. Once I got the fabrics chosen, cut, woven, and fused, using Word on my computer, I printed (backwards) the words I thought most inspiring to surround the most important theme- Love. I traced them onto fusible web, cut the letters out of black, attached them and sewed them on.

For the quilting, I used a zigzag stitch to reinforce the wavy connector lines, and around the border I did free motion- with the word "love" on every side. We can never get enough love!

I don't think there are any of us who haven't been touched by cancer in some way, but these inspiring words can remind us all of what to hold onto when adversity strikes- no matter what face it is wearing.

The wall hanging has not yet been auctioned off, but hopefully it will bring in a good amount to help with the total that the store is able to raise.

So that was my first taste of stepping out of the box in quilting, and I had so much fun. Now almost every project I tackle has more of my personal stamp on it, and that is fun!