RAMSEY, Minnesota — Quilting is more than a craft to Jennifer Rice. It's a legacy of love.
"I think it's one more way in our society that we can connect to other people," Rice said.
On a summer day in June, Rice was busy sewing in her kitchen in Ramsey. As a gift for her cousin's oldest kid who had just graduated high school, Rice was making a quilt.
"I knew how to sew because my mom was always a big sewer and she taught me how to sew," Rice said. "I grew up in the days when in middle school you took sewing classes."
The quilt is in the same pattern Rice and her mom, Judy, used to make quilts for five other family members.
Rice held up one of the quilts and said, "This is the last quilt my mom and I worked on together. So this one was special because it was the last one. I put the borders on this quilt, the rainbow borders, on the day after she passed away."
Around the end of 2019, beginning of 2020, Judy was diagnosed with lung and breast cancer. Despite radiation and a remission, she had a reoccurrence at the end of 2021 and started hospice in January 2022.
While at home in hospice care, Jennifer and Judy would sew together.
"I think it helped bring us together too," Rice said. "That made me happy that I could spend time with her at the end of her life doing something that brought her so much joy and that then leaves a legacy."
After Judy died in April 2022, one of her unfinished quilts sat in Rice's home. The quilt was to be a replica of one Judy made years ago.
"I tend to steal every quilt that my mom made so this went on my bed and it's been my bed ever since. A couple years ago I was noticing that it was starting to look worn," Rice recalled. "So I asked her to make me another one and we picked out fabric together and she started it. She was probably a little more than half done with it when she just couldn't work on it anymore. It was more complex than she was able to do at the end of her life in hospice."
Rice said the purple in the quilt is a nod to her while the gold is a glimmer of her mother.
"I never was quite sure about the gold with this one... My mother was a lover of golds and oranges and reds. So I look at this with the little bit of gold in it and think, well mom said the gold belonged in there. So just like I had to have purple in every quilt, I think about the gold as sort of being her," Rice said.
While Rice is a quilter, she said about the bargello pattern, "I just couldn't figure out how to do it. It's above my pay grade."
For years it sat unfinished until Rice heard about the Loose Ends Project.
The nonprofit aims to ease grief, create community and inspire generosity by finding volunteers or "finishers" that take on projects people have left undone due to disability or death.
According to co-founder Jennifer Simonic, Loose Ends became a nonprofit in May 2023. They have more than 27,000 finishers in 65 countries. In Minnesota, there are currently 787 finishers.
One of those finishers is Emily Alexander. The nonprofit connected her to Rice.
In June, the pair met for the first time.
While looking over the quilt with Rice, Alexander said, "It's overwhelming to like take it over but I'm excited to do this for you."
Rice responded, "You know what? It is doing nobody any good sitting in a container."
Over the next couple of summer months, Alexander worked on the project from her craft room in New Hope.
Alexander learned how to sew in middle school from her mom but didn't start quilting until 2020.
"Everybody really got in touch with their inner granny in the pandemic," she said, laughing.
Alexander is an engineer so the precise measurements and directions for this project weren't too intimidating.
"Engineer by day, crafter by night," she said.
Alexander signed up to be a finisher for Loose Ends about two years ago but this summer was the nonprofit's first time contacting her.
"My four years now of making quilts, I felt a lot more prepared to take on this project. It was kind of a no-brainer to say yes," Alexander said. "It's an honor that she's put that trust in me to finish it. She doesn't know me at all and doesn't know if I'm capable of doing it so I think that's pretty cool. But I hope when she sees it done, it's on her bed every day, that she thinks, 'My mom made it for me.' I'm excited to be a part of that."
In August, Alexander traveled the 15 miles to Rice's home in Ramsey to give her the finished quilt top.
"I am very excited for today," Rice said.
As Alexander and Rice unfolded the quilt, Rice said, "It's just so beautiful."
Rice thanked Alexander and said, "I love it and my mom would love it. She would love that it's done."
Many Loose Ends crafters will mark a project in some way to signify where a project passed hands. Alexander marked the spot where Judy left off and Alexander picked it up with a little stitched line and heart on both sides.
"I love that. What a great idea," Rice said.
To finish the quilt using a long arm machine, Rice will bring it to the same quilter who has put the finishing touches on many of her mom's other quilts.
"I just think quilts are such a legacy of love."
Those interested in signing up to be a finisher or submitting a project, can visit the Loose Ends website. There's also a donation page for both monetary donations and where to donate yarn, fabric and supplies for each state.