It’s been said that a quilt will warm your body and comfort your soul. If that’s the case, a personalized quilt made with love will do even more than that!

Back in the fall, Joy Ranch residents were blessed to receive handmade quilts personalized with each child’s name by Diane & Mike from mylongarm.com. This generous couple, along with some wonderful friends, devoted many hours on this project, then drove to Joy Ranch from Martinsville, VA to present the quilts to our kids in person. Each beautful quilt focused on colors and interests of the recipient and each child had a big smile when receiveing their creation.

Our new, quilting friends also invited us to visit their production studio to see how the quilts were made, and we finally took our field trip this week!

We were greeted by their sweet pups, which stole the show and got plenty of love from our kids. Then, we visited the room where Diane lays out her designs and all the kids were in awe of the variety of thread colors there were! After that, Mike showed us where he does his work – the computerized, robot, longarm sewing machines. There were many beautiful quilts hanging on the walls, showcasing Diane’s thirty years of quilting.

As we were leaving, Diane & Mike showed us their “slingshot” vehicle, which the kids loved, of course.

We ended up having lunch at a cafe attached to the local airport, which was a nice surprise. Mia was happy, as she is studying to become a pilot, but Jaxson’s excitement about the planes was contagious. He couldn’t contain himself as he pulled on Lily exclaiming, “Look at the plane!” Needless to say, we are now working on getting Jaxson (and others) some flying time in the near future.

Our thanks to Mike & Diane for their kindness, generosity, and love to our kids!