Friday, October 25, 2019

Limbania's not so Good Fortune

My quilty friend Limbania passed away from breast cancer recently.  She was a sweet spirit who saw the good and light in everyone.  I knew she was ill almost immediately after I met her at the Phoenix Modern Quilt Guild.  We made this Chemo Quilt for her back in 2013.   Her cancer went away and came back.  She always tried to attend our Quiltville Kickoff parties if she was in town and I have good memories of her helping me with my fabric selections when I was unsure.  She had a great eye for color and was truly an artist.  She leaves behind a nice husband and two young teen children.  Her daughter plans to come to our kickoff party this year as she is wanting to continue the quilting tradition in her family.
Two weekends ago her husband had a sale of her sewing stuff.  I bought the lot below.
 Just after I arrived at the sale I opened up this container and saw our "On Ringo Lake" label.  I assumed that was the unfinished quilt parts inside. I about started crying thinking of how Limbania loved to join us and do the mysteries.  There was another container with En Provence.  I did not have it in my budget to purchase these and silently hoped they would fall into good hands for Limbania.
 After sharing several stories with her husband, he told me to choose one of the partially completed mysteries and take it home and finish it.  I did start crying then.  I chose the original one I saw because it was first.  In the car I told Kathy I wish I knew what happened to her Good Fortune.  Would have been nice to finish it and share it at our party.

 I got home and saw that she had a few blocks made and lots of parts. I got out the pattern and discovered it was not On Ringo Lake as I had assumed due to the label.  It was GOOD FORTUNE.  I could hardly believe it and knew it was serendipity!  Now the race was on to finish it before Kickoff!  I did a search on Quiltville and found Limbania's post from last year in which she said she was using her turquoise, lime and magenta hand dyed fabrics for this quilt....then I remembered a whole conversation with her about her fabric.  Even more special now.  So I started sewing...and sewing...



It should be completed this weekend.  As I have all the borders made.  I had to add some of my own fabric for the final turquoise/aqua border as there was little fabric with the parts and so not enough of her fabric.  There was also no eye break border (you see my floor here where it goes) so I made one from a light aqua fabric I had and decided I would rather use a sparkly white (like she has in the quilt) but I had trouble finding it online.  I ordered one that may not work as it turns out--so if it does not, I may just use the white I had to buy to complete the borders.  Looking forward to getting it made and hopefully quilted before the party!

It is sad that Limbania's not so good fortune to die so young allows me to complete her Good Fortune so she can be at one last kickoff party.  I heard Celeste is completing her Allitare quilt too. 

5 comments:

Moneik said...

Beautiful story and oh such a great way to get back to sewing more. I have both On Ringo Lake and Good Fortune in blocks, but need to get them put into tops. I was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and have surgery next week. My goal in my recovery is to find some time to do the monotonous piecing needed to finish the tops.

Vireya said...

That is so sad, but it is nice that you can feel the connection to your friend through finishing her quilt.

Quilter Kathy said...

How wonderful that you ended up with her quilt! The colours are beautiful!

Marly said...

It's such a sad story, but it's also so good of you to finish your friend's quilt for her. What will you do with it after your party?

The Joyful Quilter said...

What a beautiful quilt that is going to be along with quite a story, too!! Such a terrible loss.

Happy National Quilting Day!

I participated in the National Quilting Day sewalong on the Modern Quilt Studio page.  We sewed Friends all Around.  Here is my first block....