A Quilt for Lori

I have a friend at work that likes to tease me lovingly about my quilting.  She gets a kick out of how addicted to fabric I am.  Her thing is Coach purses and we know how expensive they are.
Back in March of last year I was at a small quilt show out here in Calif and found this beautiful panel I knew she would love and I planned on making a lap quilt for Lori for Christmas.  I wanted to show her quilts are artistic and contemporary as well as traditional. Here is a pic of the panel.

I just love the bright and vibrant colors.  Look at the way the pattern gives the water movement.  I was very excited about makeing this for her. 
In April Lori found out she had breast cancer. She underwent a double mastectomy and is receiving chemotherapy now.  Because of this the quilt I wanted to do for her took on a different meaning.  I wanted her to know that her coworkers were thinking of her. I work in the medical industry with the surgerons that care for cancer patients so we all had inside knowledge of what she was up against. 
To include everyone who wanted to be a part of the project I cut up a bunch of 8 1/2 inch squares and asked anyone who wanted to, to decorate the square in any way they liked .   I plan to incorporate all the squares into the back of the quilt. Some of my coworkers really got into it. Here are some of the squares I have gotten back.

This one was done by one of the guys I work with. He like to bike ride and photography. He took the pic when he was out on a ride with his son and the went throught the process of figuring out how to get the photo on fabric.  I was impressed with all the thought, time and effort that went into the block.


Here are a few of the others. Everyone who did one told me they werent very creative and didnt know what to do.  When I saw what they had done I told them all they were pretty darn creative in my opinion

I think this sums up what we all feel

I have added some boarders of batik fabrics to the panel to make a larger quilt and give the panel some more depth.  I hope Lori enjoys the final product. We will be giving it to her when she comes back to work. That will hopfully be in April. Here is a pic of the quilt top so far.