Pinkify patterns – Breast Cancer Quilts

My first commissioned quilt was for a friend of mine who was going through a rough time with breast cancer treatment. She had been my sister’s nurse for over a decade, so of course I said yes.  I knew exactly what I was going to do, seeing as I only knew one pattern at the time (Cubby Hole) and I had seen the perfect fabric for it. Then everything went wrong. I couldn’t find the fabric to save my life, and then when I did it took forever to ship and the print wasn’t straight on the grain. Two days after the fabric arrived, she passed away.

Some of the various breast cancer awareness fabric I collected

The quilt turned into a memorial quilt, and helped me process my grief. I was determined to have the quilt done in time for the memorial service. With the help of my mother, who is awesome and often offers to press while I sew, we managed to finish the quilt and it came out of the dryer minutes before we got in the car for the memorial.

To this day, it is the only quilt I don’t have a picture of the final product. After having poured all the memories and emotions into it, it was too personal. I never wanted do another breast cancer quilt, but I started collecting pink awareness ribbon material just in case.

This year, several friends and acquaintances have been diagnosed with breast cancer. I offered to make some quilts to raffle off at some of the fundraisers to help offset their medical costs. Pulling out all the fabric I had collected over the years, I had no clue what to do. On top of that, I wasn’t really sure how much someone would want a quilt with this fabric.

I finally decided to just pinkify some of the patterns I had been playing with. Of course by this point, the fundraisers had already passed. I decided to make the quilts anyways and started gathering different fat quarters of pink material.  From each fat quarter, I cut four five inch strips, and each quilt got two of these strips.

Sashed Half Hexi Quilt

Sashed Half Hexi Quilt

Having just finished a Sashed Half Hexi quilt for a friend of mine, and I fell absolutely in love with the pattern. I decided to try it out in pink. The fact that I could get two half hexis from one strip mad me think it would work out well. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough half hexis to follow the pattern which calls for sewing six half hexis into a block and trimming from there. Instead, I decided to create long braids and cut my blocks from the braid instead. I ended up really liking the variety that this provided and was able to get more out of my fabric.

Tender Hearts Quilt

Tender Hearts Quilt

When I initially was looking for a pattern to do, I kept coming back to the Tender Hearts quilt. Even though Jenny used a jelly roll, at the end of the tutorial, she gives examples of how to modify the block for more variety. I decided to cut the strips into 5 x 8 ½ in blocks and followed the tutorial from there. This quilt and I did not get along from the start. Between sashing issues and tension issues while quilting, to the point of ripping out ¾ of the quilting and redoing it, I actually was surprised at how happy I am with finished product. Plus, this is the only quilt that ended up using some of the fabric that I had initially collected.

The back fabric of the Tender Hearts quilt is filled with inspirational words.

Both of these quilts have found new homes with women who are going through treatment. Now that I have finally figured out how to comfortably find a pattern for someone going through cancer that is more comfort than awareness, I see myself doing more of these in the future.