"Healing quilts" bring warmth to both giver and receiver

For 12 years, Nancy Earle has sold insurance. It's a good job, but not one that necessarily fulfills her on a spiritual or creative level. Although she didn't plan it, over time, her love for quilting added a dimension to her job that made it more meaningful.

In her line of work, Earle hears a lot of sad stories from her policyholders about their ailing health conditions, and she felt more and more compassion towards these people, until she was inspired to do something to reach out to them.

"I found it very stressful to be involved in the claims process while they are going through cancer, heart problems, having premature babies and so forth," says Earle. "It's hard to hear (these stories), and the way I can work through it is by making a quilt for them."

Earle, who is now 46, started quilting at age 20, after the birth of her first daughter, Abbey. As a single parent, she struggled financially - and sometimes emotionally - and making quilts helped her to relax. Eventually, quilting became Earle's way of channeling depression and sadness, which she experienced after the death of her 19-year-old brother, when her mother was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and after her own divorce.

"I would sit in my chair, quilting, thinking good thoughts, and wishing, praying for healing," says Earle. "The healing doesn't happen overnight, and it's very subjective, but I started to want to share my quilts with others."

Earle is a self-taught quilter, and it was a natural path. Her great grandmother, grandmother, aunt and mother were all quilters as well.

"When I first started, I had no clue what I was doing, but somehow felt that 'Granny' was guiding me from her bed at the nursing home," says Earle.

Earle made many quilts and wall hangings for family and friends, and for a long time, her love for quilting and her job selling insurance were very separate entities. In 1997, the two began to mesh.

At the time, Earle was working with a woman who was pregnant and alone. She was planning to file a short-term disability claim, but she delivered her baby early, and due to the policy language, wasn't eligible for benefits. Earle was devastated.

"I wanted to pay the claim myself, but realized that wasn't the ethical thing to do, so I set to work making a baby quilt for her new baby girl. I hand delivered the quilt to her at her place of employment," says Earle.

It was such a rewarding experience that Earle continued to make "healing quilts" for policyholders. She estimates she has made about 100 for people with all sorts of different illnesses including breast, bladder and brain cancer. She often receives a warm and grateful response, but that isn't why Earle makes the quilts.

"I credit this big step to one of my first managers who told me that you must first give before you can receive," says Earle.

Earle admits that making quits, and giving them away to people who are more or less strangers, has helped her learn to give freely and without strings attached.

All of her healing quilts are hand sewn, and made from scrap fabric, something she learned from her thrifty mother. Earle chooses the basic color scheme based on the person's illness -- like pink for breast cancer.

She also relies on the chakra colors to determine the colors. Chakras are thought to be invisible energy fields in the body, each identified as a certain color. For example, the crown chakra is purple, so if a person has a brain tumor, Earle would use purple scraps to sew into the quilt.

Earle thinks positive messages while making the blanket, and focuses on health and happiness. She doesn't charge for her quilts, but she says she has considered making quilting her full-time profession,

"However, if it wasn't for my job, I wouldn't know of all of these sick people who need that glimmer of hope," says Earle.