Blogger's Quilt Festival - A Flower Garden For Ashley!!

Hi, all!


It's that time of year again - when those of us who don't get to go to Quilt Market have the opportunity to participate in the Bloggers' Quilt Festival!  It's always exciting and inspiring to see the quilts that fellow bloggers share - be sure to jump over there and check out some of the beautiful quilts!

This year, I wasn't sure which quilt I wanted to feature.  Looking back through my pictures, I found quilts that I had great images of, but that didn't have a great story.  Then I came across this quilt - - - and it has a great story!


If you are visiting my blog for the first time, you may not know that I do a lot of charity quilting.  Our church has a quilt ministry that started about two and a half years ago, and in that time, we've distributed 242 quilts to people going through distressing events in their lives.  We've been blessed with many friends in the blogging community who have allowed us to give quilts that are much more beautiful than we could do on our own, given the time constraints we work in.  The quilt I want to tell you about is one of those joint efforts...

See that beautiful girl in the middle of the picture?  Her name is Ashley, and she's a typical 14-year old girl.  She plays on the basketball team at her high school (very well, too!), loves to hang with her friends, text, dance, do all the things that teenage girls do.  Unfortunately, she wasn't typical in one thing - she developed breast cancer and had a bilateral mastectomy this spring.  


We received a request for a quilt for her, and we went to the box of orphan blocks to see what was on hand.  Those beautiful blocks you see up there were donated by Terri.  (This is actually the second quilt we made with the same set of blocks!)  We put these together, added a pretty blue border, and set out to look for a quilt back...

This gorgeous piece from IKEA leaped out at me and said, "Use me, use me!"  The colors worked, and it seemed like a good choice for a 14-year old girl's quilt, so I grabbed it and put the quilt together!  Keep in mind, none of us who were working on this quilt actually knew Ashley....

From an article the local paper published about her.....


     She was touched when members of Gladeville Baptist Church made a quilt for her.


     "It was pretty perfect," she said with a smile.  "It's full of flowers."


     She took it to the hospital with her and now has it at home while she recuperates.

Ashley is recuperating well and looking forward to getting back on the basketball court.  She has a wonderful attitude and I'm looking forward to keeping an eye on her progress over the next few years!


So I think I have to say that this is my favorite quilt of the year!  Nothing fancy, but it is bringing comfort and a smile to a person in need - and isn't that the best reason for a quilt?


Thanks for stopping by - if it's your first time, I hope you'll be back soon and often!!!


Hugs!


Sarah


PS Be sure to check out some of the other quilts at the Bloggers' Quilt Festival - you'll be inspired, I promise!!!