Eileen's signature quilt

I touched on this a couple of weeks ago (titled Undercover Quilt). I can now post on this because the quilt has been delivered and the secret is out. I have a dear dear friend, Eileen. We've been friends since high school. We sang together in a quartet, then a trio, then by college we were a duet. We were in a performing ballroom dance group together - and many musical productions. Seems like we were constantly singing or dancing somewhere together! We married men who were best friends. She was one of my bridesmaids. We've kept close over all these years even though she moved to Iowa and I've been in Idaho and Utah. Eileen is one of those angel on earth people, truly one of the sweetest people you could ever meet. The past few years she's been battling cancer. The last year has been particularly hard on her and her family. Another good friend from those many years ago, Abby, and I reconnected again recently because of what Eileen is going through. We came up with the idea of making a signature quilt to give to Eileen. Abby took over the job of contacting family members and as many friends as she could get who has loved Eileen over these past 30+ years and have them sign fabric pieces and get them all back to me so I could make the quilt. Abby came and picked up the completed quilt last week and flew to Iowa where she delivered it to our sweet friend this past weekend. This first picture has Abby on the left, Eileen in the middle and Eileen's sister, Annie, on the right. We also came up with the idea of making a scrapbook. People were encouraged to send photos and or notes back (along with their signed fabric piece) to put into a book - Abby compiled all of that.

Here's a photo of the entire quilt after I got it finished.

There were 311 leaves signed by friends. (I only managed to get about 10 of them upside down, geez!!)

Family members were in the flower garden under the tree.

In case you can't quite read it, the heart says "Joe + Eileen". The butterflies are Joe's parents and Eileen's parents, flying over the family garden.

Just a corner quilting detail. I learned a new technique on this quilt. I machine embroidered around each piece with my longarm, thus securing everything down and quilting at the same time. Worked great!

Abby and I were bugs in the garden - she was a lady bug (didn't get a closeup of that, but she's easy to find because she's red and there are only 3 red things in the whole quilt.) Here is my snail.

This has been in the works for maybe 5 months and with as many people who have known about it, can you believe that Eileen never had a clue it was going on? Way to keep a secret everyone!!! I made the quilt to fit their queen sized bed, but have learned they've elected to hang it on a wall that is visible as you enter their front door. What a sweet experience it has been. Thank you Abby for all your help and work. We love you Eileen.