Kasey's Radiation Quilt

September will forever be a special month for me!

My daughter Kathleen aka Kasey was born on September 4th. She was the 2nd of my beautiful daughters and when I called my Mum early in the morning to tell her she had another grand daughter, her reply was they will be such good friends! So true. My girls, Elizabeth and Kathleen were 22 months apart in age, but joined forever in their hearts! They were each other's best friend and support during the good times and during the bad and challenging times! Kasey lost her battle with cancer last November.

September is a symbol of the changing seasons. Here in Calgary our leaves are already a glorious mix of greens, dark reds, golds and yellows.

The light in the morning is glorious and as I've been walking with Lady I've been amazed every morning by God's wonderful creation. Walking has provided (forced) me with time to think and plan my day, but also to spend some time praying for what lies ahead.

I want to share a bit about this quilt: Kasey's Radiation Quilt.

The pattern is a new one from Deb Tucker's Studio 180 Design. The real name of the quilt pattern is Radioactive.

It took me a while to figure out what the title meant! But as soon as I figured that out I was quite excited with my choice of fabrics. It was so appropriate that I was making a quilt in memory of Kasey who spent so many months with chemotherapy and radiation treatments.

Fabrics: In April we had a bit of a snow fall and I decided that it was probably my last chance to do some snow dying for the year. Watch this video to see how (not) particular I am about dyeing fabric!

I grabbed some yellows (lemon and golden) and some blues (sky blue, slate and turquoise) and sprinkled them on a number of fat quarters of fabric covered with snow. Now, when you snow dye, as much as you plan, you never really know what you are going to get as a result! All I knew was I was going to get variations of greens.

Kasey's favourite colour was green. I had wanted to make a quilt for us for a remembrance of Kasey. I had no idea I'd be working on a quilt in her memory when I dyed the fabric. So my choices of fabrics for this quilt was perfect. One of my least favourite colours is green! Isn't it wonderful how God knows what we need before we do? Why did I decide on the blue and yellow dyes back in April instead of blues and reds as I originally planned. I changed my mind at the last minute and these blues and yellows have made some amazing greens!

When the call went out for pattern testers this summer from Sarah at Studio 180 Design and I decided to do the queens size test, I was looking through my stash of hand dyed FQ. I needed 20 FQ (a lot) and decided these snow dyed FQ would be a good start. I found other greens and yellows in my stash to get me up to the required number of Fat Quarters.

I then went fabric shopping for the remainder of the fabrics I would need. I choose the 2 browns as I was already thinking of a fall quilt (for my bed) and knew these FQ were going to remind me of the leaves changing colour in the fall. I also had a navy blue fabric chosen for the inner border, but decided not to use it at the last minute. I really wanted to bring out the fall colours.

This quilt uses the new Star 60 tool from Studio 180 Design. I love 60 degree units and have used this tool in 3 projects so far.....thinking this will definitely become a class one day....it is quite easy and straight forward to use.

I am so very glad that I made this quilt and got it finished during September. This will be my Kasey Quilt and will keep us warm every fall.

I want to make another of these Radioactive Quilts.....maybe in the original blues and reds! We'll see, but probably not this large! The Star 60 Tool is easy to use. Here's Deb's video introducing this great tool!

Thank you for letting me share my daughter and this quilt with you!