Quilt Therapy

A little less than a year ago a dear friend of mine experienced a life-altering medical episode that has seen her suddenly become a resident in a long-term care facility. It breaks my heart. No more lunches out, no shared vacations, no whiling away an afternoon sipping a good Manhattan. 

Her home is being vacated so one day her house cleaner dropped off a bag of quilting cotton purchased in 2013 on one of our jaunts to Niagara-on-the-Lake. To help ward off my despair about her current state and our loss, I decided to use them make her a quilt. A quilt for her, therapy for me.

It's an interesting mix. Initially I thought that they were all coordinating, but a closer look revealed fabrics from a couple of planned projects (she is not a quilter but always had hopes of becoming one) so I started distilling them into piles that might work.

There are two beautiful paisleys from the same line, one in winter white and the other in a beautiful rich blue and I was keen to use at least one of them. Originally, I thought that there was blue in the white paisley, but as you'll see in a bit, it's more mauve/purple.

I've found an Irish Chain pattern that will show the paisley off nicely (hence the pattern drawn, literally, on the back of an envelope, above), so my mission was to find enough in my stash to make things work. After several tries I landed on this combo but decided to make a test block before going too far. I'm so glad that I did.

There are two versions of the same block, the only difference being the placement of the light and dark yellows. When seeing them made up the whole thing was just too intense. Back to the stash.

This is where I've landed, but not until I had let them sit together for a while. It will be much more restful....M