The culmination of one year’s work (WOYWW #107)

Today is going to be quite a hard day for me, but tinged with the sadness that today would have been dads 88th birthday is a good and happy feeling too. You know, the kind of feeling you get when something you’ve been working on for a very long time is finally finished and you can sit back feel proud of what you and some very special friends have achieved.

By now you must be thinking, what the hell is she going on about, it’s Wednesday and we're only here to see what’s she has on her desk, but today I’m not going to show you my desk at all.

What I am going to show you though is my sofa because it’s covered with nine beautiful lap quilts and thirteen cushions that have been made for the hospice that cared for dad in his last months.

Dad and I came up with the idea while he was having his treatment at the hospice because we wanted to give something useful back to them as a special thank you from the family for all the kindness and care they gave to dad. Mind you, I couldn’t have completed the project if it hadn’t been for some very special people and I can’t thank them all enough for making my insane idea of making nine quilts and matching cushions happen.

There have been a few road and air miles involved in this project too.

Four sets of the squares were cross stitched by two lovely ladies in Holland, Marg and Marie-Thérèse.
I didn’t even know them until my friend Nicki suggested that they might like to give me a hand with the cross stitching, so I sent them all the threads and material they would need and also one square stitched by me. The reason for that was that I wanted to have at least one piece of my own stitching on each and every one of the quilts so I also stitched all the logo's.

I myself stitches all the squares for another four sets and also some of the Gerbera’s squares for the final quilt which was being stitched in Bristol by my other wonderful friend Sharon.

As we finished the sets of squares we sent them out to Nicki in Switzerland, another very special friend and very clever lady with a sewing machine, and she stitched her magic with the fabric that dad paid for himself and made all the squares into the beautiful quilts and cushions.


Last week they all arrived back in the UK and later this afternoon my two brothers and I are making a very special journey to the hospice on dad’s birthday to deliver the quilts and cushions together with this card that I’ve made.

Following this are some close ups of all the quilts and cushions if you would like to see them but be warned, there’s a lot of photos and later today I hope to have a photo of us actually handing over the quilts.

Thanks for stopping by this week and don’t forget to visit Julia to see what everyone else is up to this Wednesday.

Have a great day and…………
Happy Crafting!
Sue
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Quilt #1

Quilt #2

Quilt #3

Quilt #4 -

Quilt No5

Quilt #6

Quilt #7

Quilt #8

Quilt #9

Update

I have one final photo to share with you from this afternoon.

Right to left - Essie, one of the nurses who spent an awful lot of time with dad, Michael (middle brother) Keith (eldest brother) and me. (didn't realise just how White my hair is now)

The nursing staff were overwhelmed with the quilts and cushions and we spent a lovely hour on the unit catching up with the staff who looked after dad.

Thanks once again girls for all your stitching and making a very personal project so very special.
Sue
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