Meet the owners of Forever In Stitches, Ruth and Rick Grihalva.
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| This photo captures the memory of Forever In Stitches's grand opening in 2004. Ruth (with scissors), Rick (second from right) and son Peter (between both) Forever In Stitches, LLC is a full service quilt shop located in northwest Ohio at the center of Bluffton. The 130 year old building houses 3,000 square feet of quilting delight. Forever In Stitches, LLC is the home of the Perfect Corner Ruler™ (which Ruth invented!) and Raggedy Ruth Designs™. With products including more than 2,500 bolts of fabric displayed with their 5,000 fat quarters, wide backing, batting, notions, gifts, patterns, magazines, longarm services, and over 1,100 proprietary digitized quilting longarm designs...we are pretty sure their quilting customers, friends, and family can all find something to keep them busy in this shop!  This is not the first year that Forever In Stitches have been Grand Sponsors of our quilt challenge but it wasn't until now we became aware of the personal connection Rick had with ALS. Twenty-four years ago I was talking to one of my best friends, Dave, and president of my company, Executive Insights. Dave Alderman asked me to raise my hands above my head. He wanted to see how difficult it was for me, which it was not. It turned out that he could not raise his left arm higher than his shoulder. Being a stout, strong man, the situation troubled him. Shortly thereafter he was diagnosed with ALS [Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis - Lou Gehrig's disease]. He rapidly deteriorated physically into a wheelchair. He resigned his position to seek ways to make his mark on the world before he died. As Dave moved from one level to the next, always lower, his cheerful, gregarious nature remained. Dave was fortunate that his wife, Helen, was a nurse. When you have a friend with ALS, you do things you did not think you would normally do. This is because ALS "disconnects” all of the nerves from the muscles. This makes it almost impossible to function in a normal fashion. These disconnects also include the muscles needed for breathing. One basically suffocates. Fortunately for Helen, David died in his sleep, even though he was using a breathing machine. I pray that our donation will help others. Forever In Stitches is proud to announce that we are a Grand Sponsor of "Hopes & Dreams: Quilt Challenge to ALS." We are touched that Rick chose to sharing his story. As part of their $1000 Grand Sponsorship in prizes, Forever In Stitches has graciously donated an assortment of their patterns which include the Perfect Corner Ruler and Intersection Indicator.  If you have a moment, please click here to tell Forever In Stitches THANK YOU for continuing as a member of the Hopes & Dreams sponsorship team. You can also follow them on Facebook and get updates on what's going on in their shop! To Ruth & Rick,  Quilters Dream Batting and the Hopes & Dreams Quilt Challenge for ALS are incredibly thankful for your tremendous support! |
