Wednesday, June 14, 2006

For all the women you love


How many of you have been touched in some way by ovarian cancer? I know at least one or two of you have fought this silent but deadly killer yourself. What about your mothers, sisters, daughters and friends? My dear friend Peggy in Tangled Threads has been fighting this disease for almost three years.

Did you know there is something "quilty" you can do to help? Blank Fabrics, a manufacturer of quilting fabrics, is helping raise money for Ovarian Cancer research. I hadn't heard of Blank Fabrics until Peggy told the Threads about this last fall.

The company makes beautiful, colorful fabrics for quilters. For every 12" finished (12 1/2" unfinished) quilt block sent to them they will donate $1 for ovarian cancer research. At least half the fabrics in each block must be Blank fabrics, with the other fabrics being anything you want to use from your stash. The blocks are being made into Inspiration Quilts, which will be auctioned to raise even more money for research. Each Inspiration Quilt is dedicated to a particular quilter who is battling ovarian cancer; names to be considered are submitted by friends. The first quilt is totally finished, and the second quilt is at the quilter now. Blocks are being collected for the third quilt, which will be dedicated to my friend Peggy.

If you go to their website you can read the stories of the women to whom the first two quilts were dedicated. You can see pictures of the "virtual quilts". Clicking on each of the individual blocks will give you a close-up of the block and a picture of the maker of the block. There is also a link for finding a store in your area that sells Blank Fabrics. You may already have some in your stash and not know it.

I'm posting this in the hope that you will help spread the word about this effort, and maybe even send in some blocks yourself. Ovarian cancer is very deadly because there is no infallible way to test for it, and by the time the victim begins to feel pain the cancer is almost always too far advanced to cure. The symbol for the fight is a ribbon similar to the breast cancer ribbon in teal instead of pink.

I encourage you to do this yourself or for the special women in your life.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this reminder Patti. I have a couple of blocks made and need to mail them! My mom died 14 yrs ago from this dreaded disease.
Hugs
Laurie

Anonymous said...

Patti, thank you for posting this link. I had no idea about their project, but I am definitely going to participate. Teal will be my color now!

Hugs
Vicky

Anonymous said...

Patty, thanks for the posting. I hadn't heard of this project. I'll follow up on the link.

Siobhan

Anonymous said...

was just reading about this though other quilters and I have chatted about the various colors for various cancers. A most worthy cause-thanks for posting about it!

Anonymous said...

we lost two of our Bama Belles to ovarian cancer--one just about a month ago. I will pass this on, Patti.

Anonymous said...

Patty: Thanks! I didn't know about the inspiration quilts sponsored by Blank. I love doing this kind of project.
Judy L.