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Wyoming quilt on display

Darlene Doak, a traveling nurse currently working in Thermopolis, has submitted her artistic quilt in the Row by Row quilt contest and it is on display at Gooseberry Garden Quilt Shop.

The Row by Row Home Sweet Home Experience is like a shop hop for quilters. Participants visit any of the participating shops and receive a free pattern for a row in a quilt. Quilters then combine eight of the rows to create a unique quilt that represents the fun they had traveling around throughout the summer collecting the rows.

Doak was the first to submit her quilt in the Row by Row contest to Gooseberry Garden Quilt Shop winning her a stack of 25 fat quarters. At the time she submitted her quilt, it was the first quilt entirely devoted to Wyoming.

Doak came to Thermopolis on May 17 to work at Hot Springs County Memorial Hospital as a high-risk OB nurse. "My husband is retired. He has a bucket list and on that list was to see Yellowstone," Doak said. She added that they travel with a fifth wheel trailer, staying in campgrounds around the country. Her husband maintains the home and she works at a job she loves.

Doak shared that she and her husband had been teenage sweethearts but broke up in high school. Forty-five years later, a nurse Doak had worked with found him and arranged for them to reconnect. The Doaks have now been married for over a year.

When Doak had the opportunity to work in Thermopolis, she looked at a map and realized it was not far from Yellowstone making the decision to take the job an easy one. Once they pulled into town, Doak, who has been a quilter since she was five, was happy to see a quilt shop.

When she entered Gooseberry Garden Quilt Shop and met Susan Turnbull she felt right at home. There she learned that Wyoming was participating in the Row by Row contest starting in June and she posed the idea to her husband of traveling around the state to quilt shops.

"He said to me – it's like the honeymoon we never had," said Doak. They began their travels in Cody at The Friends & Co. Quilt Shop and at that time they went onto Yellowstone. Throughout the rest of the summer, they visited the Wyoming towns with all 29 participating shops in the Row by Row, all in time for Doak to make and submit her quilt prior to the contest deadline.

According to the contest rules, Doak had to select only eight rows to include on the quilt. "These were the ones that made me think, this is Wyoming," said Doak as she runs her hand across the scenes featured on her quilt.

During the couple's travels around the state, other ideas came to Doak about things to implement into her quilt such as 125 years of Wyoming Statehood and 100 years of the National Parks Service.

For the center of the quilt, Doak chose a newly released fabric with a digitally printed scene of the Grand Teton Mountains.

Doak used meandering quilting to put it all together. "I used the meandering stitch because of the way the highways and roads are here in Wyoming," she said.

Her contract schedules her to remain working at HSCMH until November 19. She came to our community with a wealth of experience and knowledge in her field.

Doak's eyes light up as she tells her story about traveling around Wyoming with her long, lost love while she proudly talks about the details of the craftsmanship which went into her amazing Wyoming quilt. Doak occasionally mentions how she found a great friend in Turnbull and talks about her wonderful coworkers at the hospital. This reporter can't help but walk away thinking it is clearly evident that Doak feels equally as lucky to have found our community as we are to have her.

 

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