Quilt for my Grand Niece, Alyssa

Last week we had some horrible news. My grand niece, Alyssa, was having pain in her hips. She just turned 11 years old. After many tests, one surgery and lots of trips to the doctor, she was finally diagnosed with a nasty type of bone cancer called Ewing's Sarcoma. Not what anyone wanted to hear but at least now they know what they are dealing with.

Beginning sometime this week she is scheduled to start 12 weeks of chemotherapy followed by surgery to remove the affected area of the bone. They'll replace it with either a bone graft from another part of her body or metal. Then she has to do radiation followed by another 12 weeks of chemotherapy. That feels like an awful lot for an 11 year old to endure! She is such a delightful child, it breaks my heart! Here's a photo of her at the zoo this week.

There isn't much I can do but I thought I'd do what I know how to do best. I'm making her a quilt. I planned to make one with minky on the back but the minky I found was not that great. It was so heavy I decided to go with a flannel backing. Below is the quilt I decided on from Meryl Ann Butler's 90 Minute Quilts. I wanted something fast and this fit the bill. 

Alyssa loves monkey's so that's why I chose the monkey fabric for the quilt. Then I found these two adorable monkey. The sleeping one plays a lullaby to help a child fall asleep and you can also record a message. I liked the idea of being able to have her hear our voices telling her how much we love her. And aren't they just the cutest monkeys ever? Both are just as soft as can bee, too.

You can see the flannel dot fabric for the back below. I am in the process of quilting it but I had to take a break for today. For some reason every time I stitched a few feet, my thread would shred. I know I can get it figured out but sometimes one just needs to step away for a while or it just gets worse.  I had hoped to have the quilt finished today but I guess that isn't going to happen. I'll try again tomorrow. I don't plan to quilt this heavily as I want it very soft and snuggly! Hopefully in the next day or two I can get this done and shipped to Washington State to Alyssa. If you are a praying person, please say prayers for Alyssa (Zoll) and her family, (mom, Michella, dad Harold, sister Kalie and brother Jacob). They need all the help they can get!