Friday Finishes - Sort of...

July was a VERY busy month!

I'm sure you saw that I was the July Desire to Inspire participant and that I was part of the Christmas in July Blog Hop. You can check out lots of pictures HERE, HERE, and HERE

What I did not share earlier, is that I made 8 lap quilts for the nurses who helped my best friend Kare during her 18 long weeks of chemo. (Side note here- I hope you all have an awesome friend like Kare. She really is special!)

Kare's husband Fernando asked me about making quilts for Kare's chemo nurses and I thought it was a great idea. The problem was that there were only four weeks until her last treatment and I had a couple of other projects with deadlines so I wouldn't be able to start them for a week. That meant I had three weeks to finish eight quilts. Oh dear! Nevertheless, I said yes with the condition that the quilts could be small (all are about 45" x 55") and that they could all be very simple in design.

Even before Kare started her treatments, our friend Denise and I made a quilt for Kare. Since Denise lives in TN and Kare and I live in OH, this was kind of like a long distance quilting bee. Denise and I each made 10 scrappy log cabin blocks out of a variety of pinks and cream. We each started with the same light green center so as to keep some consistency; but other than that, we used whatever we wanted. When Denise completed her blocks, she mailed them to me and I finished the quilt. We were thrilled that Kare liked the quilt, used it often, and even took it to chemo with her.

I love the heart shape that shows up with this log cabin layout. I decided that I wanted to quilt hearts and I know you can't see it in the picture above, so here's a close up picture.

And just because I thought it would be fun, I used some bra fabric on the back. Kare and Denise like it too, as I knew they would.  :-)

Here's Kare at home with the quilt after one of her treatments.

So let's fast forward to the last day of her chemo - July 11, 2016.

I love this picture! Kare looks pretty darn happy to be done with this portion of her journey back to health.

Fernando looks happy too.

I snapped a picture of the stack of quilts before I left my house. This is a stack of "thank you" hugs to eight wonderful nurses. They have no idea how special they are to so many people!

This is another of my favorite pictures. The nurses were all surprised and they all liked their quilts. Fernando had been asking them about their favorite colors and they had no idea that it was to personalize quilts for them.

I was honored to be with Kare and Fernando that day and even though there were tears shed, they were tears of joy and thanks.

Now that Kare has started her 6-8 weeks of radiation (5 days a week!), I feel like I have to think of something fun to do when that is over. We'll need to do some serious celebrating!

I snapped pictures of the individual quilts. You know, just because I could.

I really like this chevron quit. It reminds me of a Charlie Brown shirt. Jenny's favorite colors are purple and pink,

Suzanne likes coral and reddish orange. I really like how this turned out too.

Purple was a favorite for a few of the nurses. Melissa said she likes all shades of purple and I think this fit the bill.

Betty likes dark green. Simple, but effective!

Lisa was another purple gal and I really like the airiness that is created from sashing these rail fence blocks.

I was a little concerned when Fernando told me that Sue likes grey. I decided on this pattern and am very surprised that it turned out to be one of my favorite quilts. Fernando likes it too, as does my husband Jack. I may have to make a few more of these in the near future.

Sandy likes purple too and I like the distribution of the purples in this quilt.

Vickie likes shades of green. This traditional rail fence looks quite different than the purple sashed one, doesn't it?

I am very happy with how these all look. It was a labor or love that I would certainly do again if needed.

I'm linking to Sarah's - Can I Get a Whoop Whoop? over at Confessions of a Fabric Addict. I love seeing other people's projects. It is such eye candy and inspiration.