We would like to thank Dick and Nancy Berner for their beautiful handmade quilt donation in support of Niagara Hospice. Nancy's quilts are both beautiful and inspirational. This raffle has raised thousands of dollars for Hospice and we appreciate your dedication and support!

Nancy Berner...

In the early summer of 1956 my husband and I left Indiana, crossed Kansas from east to west on our way to New Mexico and vowed to not return to that hot, barren state. Eight years later we returned and stayed! The 'karma' is right.

I started sewing when the first of three daughters arrived and continued sewing all their clothes for thirty years. That's when I switched to quilts. Two of my daughters took up quilting at the same time. For 20 years we enjoyed Quilt Guild meetings, classes and fabric hunting together. More recently both moved to other parts of Kansas and then one died so our little sewing circle broke apart along with our hearts.

Barbi was so creative, sensible and down-to-earth. She loved working in the quilt shop giving advice and teaching classes. She died nine months after the diagnoses of Adult Acute Myeloid Leukemia in a beautiful hospice setting. She would have loved the Niagara Hospice. When she learned nothing more could be done to prolong her life she didn't want to die in the hospital. She had spent most of the nine months there trying to survive. She was only in hospice care four days but the kindness given by the staff will never be forgotten. She is now our inspiration and every quilt we make is in her memory.

I love shopping for beautiful fabrics, developing designs and sewing. What I don't enjoy is the engineering and math associated activities. Dick, my husband of all these years, is a whiz with those technical issues as well as very capable with the personal computer and, currently, EQ7, a quilt design assistance PC program. He's my technical advisor.

Making a quilt has four fairly distinct steps: The design which includes picking and/or creating patterns, determining amounts of material required and selecting the actual fabrics. Construction involves the piecing and appliqué techniques to assemble the design. Following assembly comes the quilting phase. Quilting enhances the design and piecing and provides a completing beauty. Last is the final finishing – the part that makes all the effort to that point a final work of art, love and beauty to be enjoyed for years.

We design and make quilts that are traditional as well as contemporary. I use only quilt store cottons and Quilters Dream Poly® or Dream Cotton® batting – no need to invest a lot of time using anything but the best raw materials. I truly enjoy the piecing but occasionally do machine appliqué and hand quilting. Now, most of our quilts are long-arm machine quilted. My favorite quilter is a genius and has been published in many books and magazines. I always include her name on the label.