surprise quilt for Rita

At our January meeting, my quilting group, Crazy Quilters, decided that we would like to make a quilt as a surprise for Rita, one of our members and friends.
Rita hasn't been to a meeting for several months...she has been busy kicking cancer's butt!
She is doing great and has been working all the while she's been going through treatments. She is tough as nails!

Her birthday is in March so it seemed like the perfect time to surprise her with a quilt, to let her know we miss her and are thinking about her.
 At the January meeting we worked out a plan and agreed to all bring some 30's fabrics and our sewing supplies to try to get a quilt put most of the way together at the February meeting.

A couple of the ladies, Jan and Isolde, figured out a layout and cutting measurements and made up a test block, so on our sewing night we were ready to get started in on the quilt.

We had a sort of assembly line going.  Jan and Cheryl were cutting fabric...

Marcella was sewing while Linda did her pressing and kept the fabric paired up and ready to sew.

(Linda also brought a delicious chocolate cake to keep our energy from flagging.)

Here is Stephanie, Joan and Dee. They were sewing, pressing, working on the label...whatever needed doing!  Joan also brought a couple of huge pizzas and baked them fresh while we worked.

Barbara was sewing away back in this corner too...but I somehow missed getting her photo.

Wanda was there earlier so I don't have a photo of her either.

Here is Isolde. She was sewing and making sure blocks were perfectly trimmed...

That's Louise below. She hadn't brought her machine but just jumped in and started sewing by hand.

Susan is standing. She couldn't get there until after work - then she used her expertise helping with the layout and the pressing.

There is Lee, who did a lot of sewing and seemed to be everywhere at once, and Isolde working with the layout too. 

Every time the ladies would get the blocks laid out so the same fabrics didn't end up next to each other - another of us would pick up a section to sew some sashing on...and we would get mixed up where it was supposed to go back to.

Finally we had things in order!

See that bottom right block in the photo below? It is turned the wrong way!  Fortunately it was discovered in time to get it turned around right!

By the end of the evening we had the quilt top nearly together.

I brought the quilt home to pin baste and quilt.

Let me show some close ups of the cute fabrics. These are 30's fabrics...sort of reproductions of feed sacks and other popular designs of the 1930's.

The pink with moccasins - how sweet!

Orange with Arabs and camels, yellow with scottie dogs, purple with ladies and lambs...

Purple with ducks and bunnies, green with Asian ladies and flower carts, yellow with cats wearing clothes...

We all liked the green with rabbits...

It was fun quilting this quilt and seeing all the details in the fabrics as I swirled along.

Cats with musical instruments below...

All finished!

Isolde had a good idea on how we could surprise Rita.   She asked Rita to stop by her house to pick up a special sized ruler (for quilting).

A few of us from the Crazy Quilters were there to sing "Happy Birthday" and give Rita the quilt.

That's Rita, seated in the middle. Look at that beautiful smile! I think she likes the quilt!!

Beside her is her husband Roger. He is a great guy too, and has been right there for Rita every step of the way.

Standing behind, is Jan, Isolde and Susan.

Isolde served us all some delicious homemade banana pudding with meringue baked on top! Still warm from the oven too! Yummm!

Time flew by as Rita and Roger told some stories about their experiences going through cancer treatment and "prosthesis" fitting and so forth...some serious, but some with such a hilarious spin on things that we were all laughing and giggling! 

Hope Rita is back sewing with our group again soon!