Quilt to be raffled to raise money for Cures for Colors
By Becky Barclay
Published in News on April 22, 2017 11:02 PM
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Dr. Jim Atkins and his 90-year-old mother, Marion Adair, hold a patchwork quilt at Southeastern Medical Oncology Center. Mrs. Adair made the quilt to be auctioned off during the annual Cures for the Colors event that takes place May 6 at Wayne Community College.
Marion Atkins Adair helps raise money for Southeastern Cancer Care's Cures for the Colors in an unusual way -- by making a quilt each year to be raffled off.
The quilt is on display at Southeastern Medical Oncology Center.
The 90-year-old Ms. Adair, mother of SMOC oncologist Dr. James Atkins, has made a quilt for the past several years.
She began making quilts when she was about 70 years old.
"My sister-in-law said to me one day, 'Marion, I'm going to make the prettiest quilt,'" Mrs. Adair said. "She said it was bargello quilt. She showed me the book with the pattern in it and I went out and bought it myself. But it took me three years to make that quilt."
Ms. Adair said it was bigger than a king size. She said it was big enough to use as a bedspread right over the pillows.
A bargello pattern looks like hills and valleys, Mrs. Adair said. She gave that quilt to her daughter about five years ago.
Mrs. Adair began making quilts for drawings for Southeastern Cancer Care about 2010.
"I don't keep tabs on them," she said. "I just give them away. I make the quilts so they can earn money to help the cancer patients. Whatever they can earn with my quilts, bless them."
Mrs. Adair makes her quilts in various colors, but uses the same pattern each year -- a curved log cabin.
"I just thought it was much more striking than just an ordinary log cabin pattern," she said.
She first saw the pattern at a cloth store in Rocky Mount. She even took lessons to learn how to make it.
Mrs. Adair tries to use colors that represent the different cancers, which she thought was just a few until someone gave her seven pages of the definitions of the colors for the different cancers.
"That gave me license to use just about every color you could imagine," she said. "Even striped zebra is in there. That's what intrigued me."
Mrs. Adair works on her quilts whenever she can.
"If I concentrated on it and did nothing else, it would probably take me three months to make one quilt," she said. "But I do the cutting for an hour or two then quit. Then I do it again another day.
"I don't have any specific hours to do it. I prefer to work in the morning when the sun is shining onto where I'm working. I work at an east/northeast window in my home. I call it my sewing room. It's where I sit and pay my bills on one side and do my sewing on the other."
Mrs. Adair works assembly line style. She takes a little square piece of material in the center and stitches one piece to it on one side. She goes right through the 100 squares.
"That's why I do all the cutting first," she said. "If I didn't do the cutting first, I'd go crazy."
On each quilt, Mrs. Adair embroiders "Made for Cures for the Colors," her name and the date she finished it.
The quilt being raffled off this year has a special backing. On it are instructions on how to take care of succulent plants. But you have to look closely to find the words, Mrs. Adair cautions.
Southeastern Cancer Care coordinator Lee Parrish said Mrs. Adair's quilts are quite popular.
"We actually have patients who come in and ask where this year's quilt is, when it's going to be on display," he said. "They actually look for it."
But you don't have to be a patient at SMOC to buy a chance on the quilt. Anyone can purchase a ticket. They are $2 each, 6 for $10 or 11 for $20. The deadline for purchasing quilt ticket is at Cures for the Colors May 6. That's also when the drawing will be held.
Last year, the quilt drawing brought in $1,600. And 100 percent of the proceeds go to help cancer victims.
"I don't have any other way to help but by making a quilt," Mrs. Adair said.