More about the backstory

I'm not quite ready to jump on the treadmill this morning, but instead I'm going to write a bit about what has shaped up to be one of my least favorite summers, despite delving into an amazing new craft.  For what it's worth, this is my summer so far...

May was its usual glorious self for me this year:  School let out after the first week; I went to the Men's Spring Knitting Retreat at Easton Mountain in upstate New York; I accepted a knitting commission to knit an Orenburg Gossamer Palatine for a dear friend to replace a family heirloom (the lace shawl that had been worn by nine generations of women was either misplaced or stolen at the dry cleaners), and I rarely accept commission work; and I went with my LYS (local yarn shop owner) to a knitting and needlepoint trade show to help pick products for her shop for the coming year.  Up to early June, summer was going great.

On June 18th, though, all hell broke loose.  Within two weeks, the following things happened:

1. We found out my partner, Grant, has a tumor in his kidney.  His liver enzymes were elevated, we assumed from medications like lipitor with known potential liver involvement, but the ultrasound and C/T scans revealed the tumor in his kidney.  He has surgery on August 10th, a robotic assisted laparascopic partial nephrectomy.
2. We found out Grant's youngest brother's wife, Karen, has lymphoma.  She has her second chemo session on Friday.
3. We found out the mass removed from our dear doggie, Edwina's sweet little face (right between her right eye and snout) was a mastocytoma (mast cell tumor).  Since then, we have found out that all treatment options have a 40-50% chance of her still being with us in a year, we have to pack in ten years of loving and petting and walking and ball throwing in the next year.
4. A good friend's life fell apart when his relationship of nine years ended abruptly (and I was only too happy to talk with him at length about it because I got to talk about something other than cancer).
5. Another good friend dropped dead at his desk at work on July 5th when trying to get things caught up at the office.

But back to Quilt #0001, as this blog is about quilting.  When the brown stuff started hitting the fan back in late June, Kara very generously offered to make Karen a chemo-quilt with a matching bag to carry it in, as she did for another dear friend undergoing chemo last year, as long as I would help pick colors.  On July 5th, we met at Sew Sassy in Urbana to pick fabrics.  Kara  suggested that a really easy piecing pattern and machine quilting might let us get it done in a week, assuming I could help with ironing and such.  It very quickly morphed, however, into me helping her with all steps and getting two cutting mats going and two machines going on the piecing, but then a math error happened and everything changed.  First, the math error was mine.  The quilt pattern required 1/4 yard each of 20 fabrics (plus borders, backing, and binding), and the bag pattern required 1/8 of yard of 12 fabrics (plus lining & handle fabrics); we decided to get the extra bag yardage in all 20 fabrics so we could pick and choose which 12 to use after the quilt was pieced, so I added 1/4 + 1/8 and somehow got 5/8 as the answer.  So, we had 5/8 yards cut in 20 batiks.  After washing and ironing our fabrics, it was only when we started cutting two 2.5" strips crossgrain from selvedge to selvedge that we realized 5/8 of a yard was way too much; some quick research revealed that I cannot (accurately) add fractions, but that was a happy moment when I realized we have enough fabric to make a second quilt.  So, we immediately seized on the idea of making the second quilt for Grant to snuggle with while recovering from his surgery.  And honestly, I think I could easily cut a third quilt from what's left, but I'm not making a cancer quilt for Edwina:  She's famous for the vigor and relish with which she destroys dog beds, and I don't fancy quilting with ballistic grade nylon, even for a doggie as precious as Edwina.

So with fabric for two quilts, me helping Kara and learning about quilting became Kara teaching me on the first quilt & me making the second, but that idea lasted only a short while.  Once we started cutting strips, that was it.  I was hooked!  I don't think I would have made it through the crap-storm with knitting:  I can think too much when knitting because it's just too automatic.  Something new, though, that's a different story altogether. So now I have quilts on the brain 24/7 instead of cancer.  And I make a daily trip to the LQS (local quilt store), which in my case is the utter fabulous Sew Sassy in Urbana.  There are worse ways to cope.