Nurse’s handiwork adorns Hospice House

Cindy Magi has been a quilter since she was a teenager.

Magi is also a nurse with Hospice of Spokane.

So when plans started taking shape for the Hospice House, which began accepting its first patients this week, Magi wanted to find a way to get quilt-work into the facility.

“It started out small,” Magi says.

Magi and a few others first considered doing a quilted wall hanging for the house. But, she says, “It snowballed from there.”

With help from Hospice employees, members of the Washington State Quilters Association, a group from the Waterford retirement community and others, there are now more than enough handmade quilts for each of the 12 beds at the Hospice House.

The quilts in each room are beautiful, yet simple and sturdy enough to withstand laundering between residents.

“It will be a more homelike environment,” she says.

More elaborate designs will be used as “passage quilts,” Magi says. The ornate quilts will be draped over the body bag when a patient dies and is wheeled out of the house.

“Other hospices I talked to said that is a nice ritual,” she says.