CARLA'S QUILT

by Grace McIntyre
(St. Thomas,Ontario Canada)

For Carla

This is a story of how Carla's quilt came to be!

We are originally from the Azores (nine tiny islands off the coast of Portugal). My mother went there this year on vacation and was there over the Mother's Day weekend. I wanted to send her flowers for Mother's Day and immediately started working on finding a flower shop to send her the flowers, not realizing how remote the island she was on was. I tried and tried but to no avail. I decided to register on Facebook and post a request for help on a Sao Jorge Group (the island my mother was on). I simply posted that I needed someone to do me a favour. I immediately got a response from a lady named Carla who said she wouold gladly help. She agreed to buy the flowers and deliver them personally to my mother. As we wrote back and forth I realized that she was only two doors away from my mother and knew the family really well. She did this for me and it was a great surprise for my mother. As we talked Carla told me she had lost her and dad and shared with me how sad she was and how emotional she was with my love for my mom.

I wanted Carla's address to send her the money but she refused money so I decided since I love to quilt that I would make her a quilt. I went onto her facebook page and requested to be friends with all of her friends and started to collect photos of her and her father, our hometown and a few inspirational sayings and phots and ended up with a collection of 36 images to put onto 36 squares one of which was the words "Rest in Peace" written in the sand at the beach which I took a photo of, also a photo of me and my mother. Since our island is surrounded by the ocean and you really can't go anywhere without an acean view I made the quilt all in blues that reminded me of the beautiful water around the island.

So here is my quilt for Carla. I have shipped it to her, she has not yet seen it, but I am anxiously waiting for her to receive it and see if she likes it.

Thanks for letting me share my story.

Grace