Wow! The Gentleman Quilter is five years old on paper. Where did the time go?? Below are some of the cakes, from The Cakery, we’ve gotten to celebrate with over the years.

Every crumb of these cakes from The Cakery is DE-LISH!!!!

It doesn’t seem that long ago we were finding our space, registering the company, building our website, but it also feels forever ago. The photo below isn’t quite how John told me he had decided what he wanted to do in retirement, but it quickly became his mantra.

John’s Statler machine logged almost a thousand quilts before he turned it over to K2.

According to The Knot, the traditional five-year anniversary gift is wood, a symbol of strong roots and an enduring relationship. This feels very true. We have tried hard to be good long arm-ers to our quilters since Day 1 and must’ve gotten it right. The outpouring of support once we knew John was sick started and hasn’t stopped. Quilters are just the best!! Thank you for your continued support, especially the prayers. Grief is a hard path to walk and I know from those of you who have been in touch, came to the funeral, have stopped by the shop, you’re grieving, too. For a quiet guy, he certainly made an impact. I could include a photo of him in his work uniform, but everyone knows that. He wore a TGQ work shirt from the day we got them in till the very end. Rarely did you see him in anything else, as John was excited about every aspect of the business and promoting it was a given. The collage below shows “professional John”, but the bigger smile is at the retirement party which launched TGQ. Look at that smile! The logo included in the collage has the ribbon added to show John will always be remembered as the driving force behind TGQ.

Upper left is the last “mug shot” of John at Boeing. Lower left he’s showing off the cupcake acknowledging his 37 years at McDonnell Douglas / Boeing. Our logo on right shows the add of the ribbon in John’s memory.

We started the company not really knowing if there was a market for a long arm quilter in the city. As is so often the case, you don’t know what you don’t know till you don’t know it! For instance, domains, websites, business license, etc. We did know that the more you relied on others, the more it cost, so much of the fun of the early days was figuring it out on our own. It’s so much easier to be nimble when you aren’t a huge corporation. True, no legal department to call when you have a compliance question, but luckily K2 isn’t shy about asking questions to the city to prepare for the hearing to get a variance. Seeing the sign posted below made it feel real. There was an insurance commercial at the time “Oh, it’s happening, sweetheart!” and we said this a lot. To go from an idea in 2017to having our long arm upgraded in February 2022 is such affirmation we found a good gig. The photos below capture “then” and “now”.

The hearing allowed us to quilt, the upgrade allows us to quilt EVEN BETTER!

The long arrived in July 2017 and he quilted 14 quilts for family as practice. I flipped through photos of those early days in the shop and can’t believe how empty and bare it was. For an example, see the photo below as long arm was being set up. It wasn’t long and we were ordering batting in bulk, also pictured below, and John designed and built a sling to hold batting as it was used in a quilt. Clearly and gratefully, there is a need for a long arm quilter in the city!!!

Left shows four “bats” at our dock. Upper right is long arm being assembled and lower right is a very clean sling -it is now full of threads!

Besides getting the infrastructure together for TGQ, we needed some swag to give a way. It wasn’t long and we were receiving calls asking if we had gift cards, did we take Venmo, etc. So little by little, TGQ grew. The map is ready for its annual update and three new states have received quilts from us. Maybe by Year 6 the entire map is gold??

Our gift cards come with a lovely gold envelope to give them in, as shown top left. Lower left is TGQ hand sanitizer because if the pandemic taught us nothing else, ALWAYS HAVE HAND SANITIZER with you. The “Where We Are” map is shown upper right and proudly displayed above our entrance is the sign shown in lower right.

In August 2017, a neighbour said she had a friend who needed her first quilt quilted, were we interested. We said yes and a king size Mariner’s Compass came in. This quilt top was huge! A California King really and it was stunning. The customer wanted custom quilting done and the photos below several aspects of the process. The numerous patterns that were incorporated blows me away now that I’m the full-time long arm quilter. This is quite the undertaking and John knocked it out of the park. There’s a journal entry dedicated to this beautiful quilt, check it out!

Photo upper left shows the quilting the customer asked for. Photo upper right shows entire quilt. Bottom photo shows the quilt under the needle.

While “edge to edge” is the most common type quilting he did, he did some pretty impressive custom pieces as well. He designed a coat of arms which still amazes me. This system is set to run from one end to the other, no stopping, so he had to figure the coat of arms out. He had the patience of a saint! Below is a Celtic cross he designed. This comes from a job where we were asked to make something Irish. This cross was quilted in the negative space of the quilt. It has a journal entry, too - check it out!

Some of our quilters knew John liked a challenge and Hilda made this darling baby quilt for a couple expecting, both architects, and asked John to custom quilt it. He has many projects he was proud of, but this one was definitely near the top. See photos below.

The photos don’t do the quilt justice, it was so very captivating in person.

In 2019, we went to New Zealand for John’s 60th birthday and saw the sign “This is the Life” and knew it had a place with us. Below are a couple other shots of fun times. One can’t quilt all the time, right . . .

John was all about living life to the fullest. The photo lower left is him leaving Boeing for the very last time. Officially off the books!! The photo on the right was us on our way to a Prohibition themed wedding. We had our photos taken as much as the bride and groom!

Back to The Gentleman, he was never afraid to take on a project. We did a job for Ralston Purina using feed bags to weave a small version of their logo and put into a shadow box. This needs to be a journal entry, it was such a fun project helping bring a recognition award to life. John made a prototype to ensure what he was making meant the intent of the creator. That prototype became a finished award and is pictured below. He repaired a canvas awning for a neighbouring business and made prayer pouches for a women’s retreat at church. Below is the Ralston Purina job.

Above is the award TGQ kept and it hangs in our shop today.

John had an interest in leather and that became a little more than a hobby. Below are some finished items as well as the stamp he designed.

Missing from this collage is a photo of his phone case / wallet. Second project he did in leather.

Anyone who has been in the shop knows John is a soccer fan. We were season ticket holders with St Louis FC and we are with St Louis City SC. We like to say TGQ is a proud sponsor, however our budget doesn’t really allow us to truly be a sponsor, so we did the next best thing - we became inaugural season ticket holders. The photo below captures a little of that excitement.

John will have the best seat in the house next year, but I’ll miss having him by my side to explain a call.

Anyone who works with fabric knows it has selvages in order for it to be produced. Identifying information goes on this selvage, but over the years the designers have become clever with names, statements, etc. The collage below shows some examples. The selvage in the center was very timely. It was one of my first days back in the shop and on the binding fabric for a quilter who lost her husband the morning after John died.

Definitely a message here “Life is tough darling but so are you”.

Some of you may be familiar with “anam cara”, it's Celtic for “soul mate”. John’s professional mentor, Jim, taught John a lot about servant leadership and the beauty of anam cara. He died a little more than a year before John and we made his wife, Lynn, a quilt. We had anam cara embroidered on it as they were soul mates and felt we were, too. Below is a photo of the embroidery by Tag-It Embroidery and below that photo is a picture Lynn took of us during our last visit with them. We were at Crystal Bridges and for all the quilt shows we’ve been to, we’ve never seen ourselves taking in quilts. We enjoyed all types of quilts, appreciating the work that went into it, gathering ideas for future quilts, and wondering what was next for TGQ.

Finding and knowing your anam cara is a blessing. Note, John’s in a TGQ shirt :)

Seeing how you’re perceived is also a blessing! Below are two drawings done a couple years ago of The Gentleman and The Lady by our granddaughter. During that visit, there were also some “commercials” videotaped. They haven’t aired yet, but are definitely keepers!!

We loved the attention to detail in these drawings.

John always felt himself one of the luckiest people in the world, so when I ran across this pin a few years ago, I had to get it for him.

John Kelley, an inaugural and distinguished member in good standing until 17 March 2022.

What’s next for TGQ? Quilting! The ol’ dusty loom is happiest humming along. I’m not sure I’ll be the Quilt Whisperer John was, but I will do my best. I’ve been tip toeing my way back to the shop and appreciate the business that has come and the patience quilters have had while I navigate this new path without John. One of John’s favourite movies was “Shawshank Redemption” and the quote about “get busy living’ or get busy dying”, so I’m trying to get busy living, I hope you do, too. Life is short, life is precious.

Just like that . . .