"I will never forget the date- nobody forgets the day they get their chest removed."

2. Maureen Van Camp. Heat transfer and velvet quilt, 78"W x 88"H

"Mine deteriorate. Every time I have to have one replaced its an emotional experience. I already had my real one be damaged and fall apart now the fake ones are doing the same thing."

3. Vicki Tosher. Heat transfer and velvet quilt, 144"W x 87"H

"I had never seen my dad cry until I shaved my head after my first
chemo treatment."

4.Sonia Mueller. Heat transfer and velvet quilt, 104"W x 64"H

5. Lois Hjelmstad, The Gown is exerpted from Lois' book Fine Black Lines. Heat transfer and velvet quilt, 94"W x 68"H

"To me cancer has been this huge gift-- but the day that I was diagnosed I would have never called it that. Because I had this

image that it was going to be a horrible atrocity and I was going to die."

6. Ann Kontak. Heat transfer and velvet quilt, 90"W x 74"H

Fanny Burney Diary Excerpts from 1811

I mounted the bed stead he placed me upon the mattress and spread a cambric handkerchief upon my face. It was transparent however and I saw through it, that the bed stead was instantly surrounded by seven men and my nurse.

Through the cambric I saw the hand held up while his forefinger first described a straight line from to bottom of the heart, secondly a cross and thirdly a circle; intimating that the whole was to be taken off.

When the dreadful steel was plunged into the heart cutting through veins-arteries-nerves, I needed no injunctions not to restrain my cries.

7. Breast Cancer History Quilt, accompanying text is taken from Fanny Burney's diary excerpt from 1811. Heat transfer and velvet quilt, 64"W x 72"H

I began a scream that lasted during the while time of the incision and marvel that it rings not in my ears still.

When the wound was made and the instrument withdrawn the pain seemed undiminished, for the air that suddenly rushed into those delicate parts felt like sharp and forked poniards that were tearing the edges of the wound.

Again I felt the instrument describing a curve cutting against the grain, while the flesh resisted in a manner so forcible to oppose and tire the hand of the operator. I concluded the operation over- Oh No! The terrible cutting was renewed and worse than ever. I felt the knife rackling against the breast bone- scraping it! To conclude, the evil was so profound that the operation lasted twenty minutes.

"So you'll be flat?" Yes I'll be flat. "Mommy you'll look just like me!"

8. Dee Wanger Family Quilt. Heat transfer and velvet quilt, 112"W x 60"H

"I will be on chemo for the rest of my life."

9. Harriette Grober, heat transfer and velvet quilt,
60" W x 77" H