More than 75 handmade quilts have helped encourage cancer victims
Lori Fordham had just gotten difficult news about her cancer treatment.
“At that moment, I was just utterly defeated,” she said. “I even asked God out loud, ‘Why are you ditching me?’”
Then, she and her husband heard the doorbell ring.
They found a beautiful handmade quilt decorated with Fordham’s name and a pattern that showed her much-loved chickens.
“Maybe I wasn’t ditched after all,” she said.
The gift gave her courage to keep pressing through treatment.
Many people have stories like Fordham’s, all because of Gilmer-based Quilters Against Cancer.
The group has been active for 14 years.
Its premise is simple, leader Terri Olsen said.
First, a group of quilters scattered across the world learns about cancer victims from their family or friends.
Then, individual members each sew parts of the quilt. When they are done, they send the finished work to Olsen at her home in Gilmer, and she assembles it and sends it out.
“It’s just getting up in my studio, cranking up the music loud, getting on the design board and putting the blocks on the design board,” Olsen said.
Each quilt is large, up to 65 by 78 inches. They’re big enough to serve as a warm blanket during chemotherapy treatments.
Unless the quilting group is working on a tight timetable, the quilts are individually designed. Often they include patterns or themes the recipient already loves.
“We try to pick out the color of the ribbon for whatever cancer they have,” Olsen said.
Planning, cutting and sewing a hand-made quilt is a major undertaking, Olsen said. Each one represents many hours of shared labor and passion.
“It takes me up to two weeks to get it assembled,” she said.
Before final assembly, many group members have parts to play.
“I like contributing the quilt squares and seeing how Terri brings the many diverse squares into one quilt, which provides warmth and love to the person who receives it,” said group member Margery Schafer.
Olsen has a passion for quilting, but she has only ever sold one. All the rest are labors of love.
“We’re all saying prayers for that person and that person’s healing as we work on the quilt,” she said.
When finished, Olsen sends the quilt to a cancer patient. It always comes as a surprise.
“It just comes out of the air,” Olsen said. “They don’t know they’re getting it.”
For many of the quilters, the fight against cancer is a personal battle.
Olsen lost her father and her best friend’s husband to bladder cancer.
She made her friend’s husband a quilt. But he died 12 hours before it arrived.
Another group member’s mentor was diagnosed with cancer. Olsen worked with the man to help make his mentor a quilt.
Quilters Against Cancer members haven’t escaped the disease they fight. Four have gotten a cancer diagnosis.
“Those are the hard ones to make,” Olsen said of the quilts.
Often, these members have told the group that they don’t need a quilt. But Quilters Against Cancer always sets up a secret project for them.
Olsen funds much of the work of Quilters Against Cancer, but occasionally they ask for public support, too.
Anyone can donate to their work at gofundme.com/f/help-terri-and-quilters-against-cancer-provide-quilts-for-ca.
“Usually, [the quilt] ends up at their doorstep right when they’re going through the roughest time of their treatment,” Olsen said.