Please Take a Minute to Read This....

Those of you who have been quilting a little bit may recognize the name Kathy Sandbach, author/teacher/machine quilter recognized for her machine quilting talents and her willingness to share them. I ran across some disheartening news about her recently and wish you would take a minute to read on and do what your heart leads you to do.

Here's a link to one of her books

and here's something her son wrote ~~

Hello, this is Ken Sandbach, Kathy’s son. As some of you know by now my mom has been diagnosed with a nasty type of dementia, called Frontal Temporal Dementia. If you were around her the last few years at all, you may have noticed some behavior changes—slight at first, and then progressing to downright bizarre. It took the kids some time (unfortunately), but this last December we finally got the diagnosis, and began putting all the pieces together. Her symptoms these days are too numerous for this email, but if you’re curious Google Frontal Temporal Dementia or go to www.mayoclinic.com and search there.

The reason for writing is to let you know after a long conversation with my sister we have decided to begin selling my mom’s quilting legacy. We are down to about 6 month’s money left for Kathy’s care, and have found that Social Security and Medicare just don’t cut it. Assisted living care is running 7k/month, not including her insurance and mortgage payments (her Oregon house in on the market, but no one is buying these days).

As a test experiment we have put 3 of her quilts on eBay to test reception (check them out soon, they won’t be there too long). If this eBay auction proves to be worthwhile, there are more quilts that will make their way to you—her fans. While this is a tough time, and even tougher decision to make, we’re hoping that the people who love them most will be willing to adopt them.

Please, PLEASE, forward this information to your address books/quilt lovers, and ask they do the same. Kathy has traveled all over the United States and UK teaching, so I am hoping this information will make its way around the entire quilting universe!

If you have any questions feel free to email me at ken.sandbach@beamglobal.com or my sister at kristine.sandbach@wachovia.com. Also there is a guestbook at mom’s old website www.machinequiltlady.com. Please go there and sign the guestbook. It would mean a lot to grasp just how many people Kathy has touched through quilting.

Sincerely,

Ken Sandbach