Saturday 24 June 2006

Leukaemia and Quilts

In September 2005 my sister's then boyfriend, Matt Julians (aka Floyd London, guitarist for The Almighty (not my sort of thing I hasten to add)), was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia. To quote Sophie : "His type of AML was quite rare (1:70,000) and he was treated with 4 courses of aggressive chemotherapy. Unfortunately a bone marrow biopsy was out of the question as the procedure alone carried a 40% mortality rate. Floyd's chances of successfully beating the cancer are 50/50 but he still made it to remission after the first course of chemo, and he's still there now!!! We have another 4 years to get through before we can say he made it! Floyd is a tough wee lad and we know he's going to beat this leukaemia." Floyd went into remission and they got married in June last year (we flew over for the wedding and Alex was a bridesmaid). I was just about to upload some lovely photos, only to find they have disappeared and Alex and I have just spent the last hour going through every single CD in the house trying to find them. Here is one that thankfully I uploaded to Yahoo Photos. Quality isn't very good. You should have seen what Floyd looked like in January! Have you a photo Soph? Anyway, the point of this post is to ask if any of you fellow quilters out there would be interested in donating a quilt for auction in order to raise funds for Leukaemia Research. Sophie and Floyd have already raised over £25,000 through two charity concerts and various other events and I thought it would be a great idea to auction some quilts. Sophie is in contact with the Fund Raiser for LRF and she would probably be able to help us to set it up, but in the meantime has anyone out there done this sort of thing before and, if so, how do you go about it? I was thinking to putting Sunburst up for auction, but I haven't started it yet. Blue Jean Windows is a third of the way there (ish) so, depending on the time scale, would probably donate that one and make a duplicate of Sunburst at a later date if it works out as planned (hollow laughter). Let me know what you all think and hope you can help.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'd be up for it, I'm just finishing a quilt for Jacques which has to go in an expo but after that I've got a few projects planned. I'll have a word with our group maybe we could do it as a project, a big sampler or something (although on vacances until september) ???
No idea how to auction it or anything but if you can source the info i'll try source a sampler or quilt

Anonymous said...

Wow - this is amazing!! Thanks Clare for having this brilliant idea and thanks Pippa for your support too.

We are really passionate about Leukaemia Research and fundraising for them. They are the only national charity for blood cancers in the UK (24,500 people diagnosed each year and the biggest child killer sadly). They are not government funded so rely totally on fundraising.

Their research into the various leukaemias and blood cancers has saved thousdands of lives but sadly so many people still pass away each year.

Floyd and I have a friend in a wonderful little chap from Sheffield called Dan. He's 4 years old and is 3 months on from his bone marrow transplant. Sadly, it looks like he has just relapsed as they found leukaemia again in his testicles. Poor little lad is now looking at having them removed and then another bout of chemo plus 2 years maintenance chemo. But his outlook is still POSITIVE and they think he could fully recover.

So, for those of us who've been touched by leukaemia, we are madly passionate about raising money to help fight the fight!!!! :)

Sorry to prattle on - just want you to know how much I appreciate it!!

There is a great website called www.justgiving.com which would be a good way to receive auction payments (possibly) or Floyd and I can eBay it?

Love Soph xxx

Floyd said...

Seconded, a brilliant idea.
Thank you so much. I'm sure we could find the best way to raise the maximum funds from this.

We have gotten ourselves involved with an online community of Leuky patients and carers, this is where we met little Dan. Its our own support centre. Real stories, real dilemmas. It's of enormous help on a personal level for all involved.
These are all talented intelligent and brave souls battling through this illness. It is because of all of this that Soph and I are driven to support Leukaemia Research in any way we can.

Thanks also for the anniversary wishes Clare. This year was a tad more relaxed than last year.
Floyd.
x