Kare11
Crafters step in after a loved one’s death
After Jennifer Rice’s mother died in 2022, one of her quilting projects was left unfinished. That’s when Rice heard about the Loose Ends Project.
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.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said the FBI and BCA are investigating a post calling for violence against them.
MINNEAPOLIS — Hateful comments toward two Minneapolis Police recruits have Chief Brian O’Hara boiling.
“It was definitely disturbing to see this stuff on social media that’s just purely racist, hatred, and just lies,” he said. “We don’t need people, we don’t need former law enforcement or former law enforcement executives to be fanning the flames of violence against my cops. That’s gross.”
Last week, Ikran Mohamed and Lesly Vera made MPD history. Mohamed is the first Somali woman to wear the uniform, and Vera is the first permanent resident, a green card holder, to be sworn in as an MPD officer.
O’Hara said Mohamed came to the United States when she was 10 years old, living in southern Minnesota. She was a corrections officer before she joined the department.
“She could have gone anywhere in the state of Minnesota. She chose Minneapolis
He said Vera came to Minnesota when she was 4 years old and has lived in southern Minneapolis her entire life.
“She’s a permanent resident and because of a law change she is able to be a police officer and there is nothing wrong with that… and she worked extremely hard to get this position just like everyone else did,” he said. “She should be entitled to protect and serve her community just like the other recruits are.”
O’Hara said the hatred toward these women needs to stop.
“We’ve gotten calls to Minneapolis from around the country for people expressing hate about these two women all week, so it’s not just the stuff on social media. There’s been at least one post that we have found that the FBI and the BCA are aware of that is calling for violence against them,” O’Hara said.
He said these hateful messages could lead to violence toward his officers and is concerned for their safety.
“A lot of violence starts with words, and it’s just not OK to use my cops as props to try and political grandstand,” he said. “These public officials who are out there that have been saying this hateful stuff should be aware of the consequences of their actions and if something were to happen these folks have blood on their hands.”
O’Hara said he wants the best people to work for the police department and said these women have become a part of the fabric of the community who lives here.
“If we are trying to get the best naturally, we’re going to come up with folks from our communities. We’re going to come up with more women, we’re going to come up with more ethnicities and people who have not been represented before,” he said.
He said the department has struggled with recruitment but said they’ve seen an increase in applications and in different programs that lead to sworn officer positions.
He’s looking to hire more good people with strong characters like Mohamed and Vera.
“I’m very proud of these women. I’m proud of all of them, the r recruits, who again are stepping up to do the most difficult job in policing in America today is to be here in Minneapolis,” O’Hara said.
GOLDEN VALLEY, Minn. — Dozens of cats are now living with the Animal Humane Society after their owner released them to the group.
AHS took in 55 cats from a single-family home in Wadena County. In a social media post, the group said this comes after an “urgent request from an overwhelmed caretaker.”
The cats are generally healthy, AHS said in the post, but some are being treated for respiratory disease.
“Knowing the situation was unsustainable and could quickly become dire, the owner released the cats to Animal Humane Society, ensuring their beloved felines would receive the expert medical and behavioral care they needed,” AHS said in the post.
A spokesperson with AHS told KARE 11 they are still learning about each animal’s history and unique medical and behavioral needs, but some may start becoming available for adoption as early as next week. In the meantime, AHS is asking for financial support to take care of the new cats.
On the same day he flew out to join his new team in New York, Karl Anthony Towns made good on a promise to two of his biggest fans.
MINNEAPOLIS — Days after trading one of the cornerstones of the Minnesota Timberwolves franchise, general manager Tim Connelly officially introduced the three players, who will replace Karl Anthony Towns.
But first, he acknowledged the KAT not in the room.
“The whole idea of trading people, I think is pretty gross and weird,” Connelly said, as he sat on stage next to Julius Randle, Donte DiVincenzo and Keita Bates-Diopp. “It’s hard to get players of this caliber, so to do that we had to give up one of the best players to ever put on a Timberwolves jersey. As good of a player (KAT) is, he’s an even better guy, so New York got a heck of a guy and an even better person.”
As a reporter who has covered the Timberwolves for 20 seasons, The Athletic’s Jon Krawczynski has spent years documenting KAT’s impact on and off the court.
“I was here when he was drafted as a 19-year-old, I watched him kind of grow up in life and in this league,” Krawczynski said.
In turn, Towns also saw Krawcynski’s kids grow up.
“I would bring them to practice every once in a while, we would go to Karl’s basketball camps and he would always meet and say hello and be very kind,” he said. “He came here three months after Nita, my daughter, was born, my son was two at the time so they don’t really know life as Timberwolves fans without Karl Anthony Towns.”
When Krawczynski was breaking the story about the trade on Friday night, he reached out to KAT for comment. When he eventually heard back, he wasn’t surprised to hear he was ‘stunned’ by the news, but Krawczynski was surprised by what he heard next.
“(KAT) asked how the kids were taking it because he knows they’re big fans of his,” Krawczynski said. “I was upfront with him and said Nita cried herself to sleep and that they were very sorry to see him go. That’s when he responded, ‘Where are you going to be tomorrow? Do they have sports or anything?”
Krawczynski says he did mention that his daughter had soccer in Blaine the next morning, and passed along directions, but he wasn’t exactly expecting a visit.
“When I woke up on Saturday morning I had seen a video he had posted on Instagram of him shooting in the Timberwolves practice facility at 3 a.m.,” Krawczynski said. “I didn’t bother telling my kids or even my wife because I figured there was just no way that he’s going to make it to an 11:00 soccer game probably 35 minutes from where he lives.”
Krawczynski: “I was shocked. Lo and behold, I get a message at halftime of the game that he’s pulling up, and there he is. He’s seven feet tall and he has a Timberwolves shirt and a Timberwolves hat. He doesn’t keep a low profile at all. He walks right out onto the field and we watch the game together.”
Kent Erdahl: “Just as a Dad, what was that moment like for you?”
Krawczynski: “There’s nothing more than I could ever want to provide my children in a moment like that. My son has had some health issues and Karl told him that he’s very proud that he’s overcome those and then, for my daughter, just as sad as she was, there he was wrapping her in a hug and having some words for her. At the end of the day, you just want your kids to feel good and that’s what Karl Anthony Towns did to them.”
Erdahl: “You also immediately became the coolest dad on the soccer team.”
Krawczynski: “Ha. It was, it was that a little bit. You know, I have to temper expectations now. I don’t know how I beat this. Like, I don’t think this is happening again but to see them come over and say, wow, this is really cool. Yeah, I think I’ll be trying to play this card with the kids forever.”
He’s also pretty sure KAT won’t soon forget it either.
Krawczynski: “Even though him coming to the game meant so much to my children, I think that he needed something like that as well. He got there and a bunch of other girls from other teams came over and took pictures with him and said how much they loved him and how much they’re going to miss him and it allowed him a moment to say goodbye on a small scale. To a community that has raised him.”
