April's Giving

Our guild's friend April C. has been at it again - making beautiful, original quilts and donating them to Seattle Children's Hospital via Katie's Comforters Guild. Here is her latest batch of seven:

We appreciate April's generosity, creativity, industry and sense of community. She is not only willing to meet with fabric donors to collect their gifts, and regularly transforms those gifts into quilts for patients; she also sorts and catalogs each donation very carefully via spreadsheet format, and delivers the finished quilts to the hospital. The result is a pleasure for all to see (above)!

Thank you, April, and thanks to fabric donor Sherry B.!

Bonnie's Beautiful Handiwork

Bonnie came over to deliver seven gorgeous quilts last week. Her designs are expertly crafted, including free-form quilting stitches. Bonnie dyes many of her own fabric pieces, so her work is one-of-a-kind, from start to finish!

Here she is with her latest batch:

Baseball quilts, using a diamond motif and diamond-patterned flannel for backing

These were made using some of Bonnie's own fabric designs

Close-up of her original fabrics and GORGEOUS quilting stitches

More beautiful stitching...

...and more

...a spiral

...and a square spiral.

Thank you, Bonnie, for sharing your gifts with Katie's Comforters Guild! These quilts are treasures, and will bless the patients who receive them with beauty, artistry and cheer.

Lucile Creates 13 New Quilts

Dear Lucile has done it again! She has donated 13 new quilts & blankets to Katie's Comforters Guild, sending them with Dawn via Mary to Tracie (our friend who is an R.N. at Seattle Children's Hospital). Look at how cute and cheerful they are:

Tracie will deliver our donations on her way to work, saving us miles and hours of driving time (and expense). This is another example of donating gifts of time and talent to our guild. We are continually grateful to Tracie for her contributions!

Thank you, Lucile, for making these beauties, and thank you, Dawn, Mary and Tracie for helping to get them into the hands of patients!

Fleece Blankets from Yelm Middle School

We received the following message from Bethany M., of Yelm Middle School:

"We did a much better job of timing fabric sales this year, involved about 55 students from the 7th grade and 9th grade leadership classes (Jen N. and Laurel R.'s classes), and made 29 fleece blankets to donate to Children's through the guild.  Jen took some of them up on Thursday and I will drop off 13 fleece blankets and two quilts tomorrow.  I think we still will have one more trip with the rest of the blankets.

"We did not coordinate a picture of all the blankets and kids this time around, but I attached pictures for the 13 blankets that will go up with me tomorrow."

Here are the photos of the 13 fleece blankets mentioned above:

 Thank you, Bethany, Jen, Laurel and all of your students from Yelm Middle School for this generous gift of 29 fleece blankets and 2 quilts to patients at Seattle Children's Hospital! 

A gift from kids to kids is especially meaningful, blessing both the giver and receiver in special ways.  
Reminder: our guild welcomes kids as Junior Members!

Why We Do It

Over the weekend, we received the most wonderful, affirming letter...

"Hello! I am writing to thank your organization, and specifically Lucille Nilsen (as referenced on my daughter's blanket tag) for the beautiful blanket we received during our stay at Seattle's Children's Hospital. We had a stressful morning in the ER at children's as our 9 month old, Olia struggled to maintain adequate oxygen levels and worked hard to breath as a result of contracting RSV. The decision was made by the team to admit her for observation and to continue to keep her on oxygen until she was more stable. My husband and I were exhausted, stressed, and worried by the time we finally arrived at our room. The first thing that I saw was this sweet blanket all made up for Olia in her hospital crib, just waiting for her. It brought a smile to our faces in an otherwise very stressful and trying time as parents. Olia immediately kicked her legs with excitement when we got her settled onto her colorful and soft blanket. We were fortunate to have a relatively uneventful stay, and only needed to stay for one full day and overnight as they took her off of the oxygen and her conditions made fairly rapid improvement.

"I just want to share our deepest gratitude with you, for all that you did for our family and continue to do all of the other families at Seattle Children's. That blanket, hand made with love and care, provided such comfort to our whole family. It was such a thoughtful touch that made our stressful experience a little bit easier to handle. Here are some pictures of Olia as she began feeling better at the hospital, and one of her sleeping in her portable crib at our parents house, we are visiting for the morning. This blanket will be a part of her entire childhood, a memory of someone who took the time to make our family's experience a little brighter. Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts. - Laura, Matt, and Olia S."

Included with the letter were these adorable photos of baby Olia with her quilt in the hospital:

and this one, after she was discharged, and doing well:

This letter illustrates why Katie's Comforters Guild exists, and why we do what we do. It also shows the power of comfort in each and every stitch of each and every quilt and blanket. It shows how important every donor and guild member is, and how much good Lucile and Noble do for our guild and the families we serve.

(That quilt is the same one which we picked up from Lucile & Noble just a week ago! You can see it at the top of the stack below.)

Thanks to Laura, Matt and Olia S.

 for permission to post their letter and photos, 

and to Lucile & Noble 

for their wonderful work!

St. Olaf's Youth Group

On Sunday, I had the privilege of visiting St. Olaf's Catholic Church to make a presentation to the youth group. St. Olaf's is in Poulsbo, our hometown, and they have been supporting Katie's Comforters Guild for a few years now, making and donating warm fleece blankets for patients through the inspiration of one of their members: Briana. Briana is our one junior guild member - and we'd love to have more like her!

I made a tri-fold presentation board and mounted photo collage pages on it (mentioned in a previous posting). I included information about guild membership, as well as about Katie's endowment and the progress in cancer research and treatment since her passing. I brought Katie's own comforter with me so that they could see how much love a blanket gets in the hospital.

We took photos together, and then they got to work, making another batch of fleece blankets to donate.

Photos courtesy of Mary Ryan, with permission from St. Olaf's Youth Group

Photos courtesy of Mary Ryan, with permission from St. Olaf's Youth Group

Photos courtesy of Mary Ryan, with permission from St. Olaf's Youth Group

Photos courtesy of Mary Ryan, with permission from St. Olaf's Youth Group

Photos courtesy of Mary Ryan, with permission from St. Olaf's Youth Group

The finished product! Photos courtesy of Mary Ryan, with permission from St. Olaf's Youth Group

Thank you, 

St. Olaf's Youth Group and leadership! 

Your spirit of giving and 

your helping hands 

will bring great comfort to patients.

Kris's Gifts via Cindy and David

On Saturday, we had the privilege of accepting a gift from two families who reached out in their own grief to bring comfort to others. This kind of gift is deeply honored, and we want to tell you about the donors.

Cindy contacted me a while ago about her talented and creative friend, Kris. Kris had a beautiful eye for design, and had a collection of fabric which reflected it. Sadly, Kris had a very advanced cancer; however, in her own time of need, she was thinking of others. She and Cindy sought a new home for her fabric, and in their search, they found Katie's Comforters Guild.

We hoped to meet one day to make the transfer of fabric, but Kris's health declined too rapidly to allow for that. She passed away a few weeks after our initial contact, and later, Cindy contacted me. On Saturday, Cindy and her husband, David, came to Poulsbo deliver the fabric to us.

We agreed to meet at Katie's memorial bench.

They brought two baskets and two boxes of gorgeous, vibrantly-colored fabric. Kris clearly had exquisite taste in fabric - and in friends.

If you would like to make a quilt (or quilts) for Katie's Comforters Guild to donate to patients at Seattle Children's Hospital, and are in need of new fabric, please leave a message for me here, or on our facebook page. It will be a privilege to work with Kris' stash and turn it into comfort for sick children!

Thank you, Cindy and David, and thank you, Alexa! 

Though we never met her, we honor Kris's memory, her generosity of spirit and her creative talents.

Dottie Sends Comfort from Idaho

Dottie has done it again - she has created 11 cheerful, cozy quilts, and is sending them to Seattle Children's Hospital, all the way from Idaho! Here they are:

She makes her own labels and binding. The labels say, "A Kiss from Katie." Isn't that sweet? The fabrics are adorable.

Thank you, Dottie!

In the latest Guild Notes Newsletter, there are announcements of holiday events and activities - if you are interested, check your mailbox or email inbox. If you didn't receive one, please contact the Guild Office and let them know you would like to be on the mailing list! Here are a few items from the newsletter:

Ideas for Holiday Support

Support a Patient Family

Participate in our annual Holiday Program and "adopt a family" by providing gift cards for our Social Work Department to distribute to our neediest patient families. Gift cards of $100 or less are appreciated, and our preferred merchants are: Safeway, Costco, Albertsons, QFC, Fred Meyer, Target, Kmart, Old Navy, Macy's, JC Penney, WalMart or VISA or Mastercard gift cards. Last year, guilds contributed over $12,000 to this incredible initiative. Help us donate even MORE this year! (Katie's Comforters Guild's V.P., Mary Ryan, has organized drop off sites for this in Kitsap County: ChocMo and Bon Cheveux Salon [formerly Kenneth L])

Purchase Ornaments and VotivesLooking for the perfect holiday gift? Support the Friends for Life Guild by purchasing a hand-blown glass ornament or votive for that unique “secret santa” or hostess present! Design is inspired by a Seattle Children’s oncology patient and proceeds benefit cancer research. Ornaments and votives are $25 each.

Did You Know?

• Thanks to your incredible fundraising efforts, the Guild Association raised $11.47 million from projects and membership dues in fiscal year 2013. This was $500,000 more than budgeted and $800,000 more than last year! 
• The FY14 Funding Focus will provide $1.5 million to be allocated across three areas: early childhood mental health care; a fellowship to train physicians to provide care for victims of child abuse; and construction of a rooftop terrace in Building Hope.
• In 2013, U.S. News & World Report ranked Children's Cancer Center 6th best in the country.