Colors of Hope

In 2005 my grandmother lost her battle to brain cancer. That summer I participated in the American Cancer Society's Relay For Life. It was amazing to see so many people come together to fight back against cancer. I met an amazing woman through our Relay For Life, a woman that touched so many lives and brought an amazing attitude with her in her fight against breast cancer and shared her story here with the world. Her name was Tracy, she lost her battle last month. Tracy was a true inspiration, she kept positive, even though it was very difficult and was able to raise over $100,000 for cancer programs and research during her six years fighting the disease. In honor of Tracy I will try to raise $1,000 this year, I also made a quilt. This is my mini-quilt called "Colors of Hope". Each color block represents a cancer.
yellow: Bladder cancer
black: Melanoma
burgundy: Multiple Myeloma (close friends' mom)

blue: Prostate cancer (grandpa)
orange: Leukemia
teal: Ovarian cancer
peach: Uterine cancer (grandma)
clear: Lung cancer (gr.ma & gr.pa)
lime green: Lymphoma
grey: Brain cancer (friends' dad, gr.ma)
white and teal: Cervical cancer
gold: Childhood cancers
light yellow: Sarcoma/Bone cancer
burgundy and ivory: Head/Neck cancer
kelly green: Kidney cancer
purple: Pancreatic cancer
dark blue: Colon cancer
pink: breast cancer (Tracy & friend)

I love the way this turned out, and plan to auction it off at a local fundraiser in a few weeks. I plan to make a full size now, to auction off and another mini to keep for myself, I am definitely making it a bit larger though. I wanted the color blocks to stand out so I made them two inch blocks and used scraps of white I had laying in my scrap bin. I had to be fussy when cutting, to make it wonky. Due to this the seams overlapped when stitched together which made it hard to press. Not to mention the

HOPE letters were a big pain! Each letter finished at   1 1/2", including the white space between (yikes.)
I was inspired by this mini quilt at crazymomquilts.
The backing fabric I found at my favorite local quilt shop, it is from Linda Lum DeBono for Henry Glass called Inspiration. The words printed all over are what sold me, they are perfect for this mini-quilt. When I saw it I only purchased a fat-quarter, not planning to make a large quilt. I hope they have some yardage left for when I make the full size quilt!

Since my first year participating in Relay For Life I have so many more reasons to join the fight against cancer. If you are interested in more information about Relay For Life or any services from the American Cancer Society, follow the link at the side of my blog. Also, if you would like to support me in reaching my $1,000 goal, the link will take you there as well. I can't wait to work on the full size quilt now!