Local quilter wins top prize in challenge

Dean Deerfield woke up at 4:30 a.m., wondering whether there was any news of her quilt on the Web site. Dean had entered the quilt in the Marie Osmond Janome Quilting Challenge. After winning at the local level, Dean's quilt, "A Little Bit Country," had gone on to be judged at the national level. Marie Osmond herself had determined that the quilt ranked among the top ten. It was up to online voters to decide where the quilt would place.
 "I knew it was going to be that day, but I didn't know when," Dean says. "I clicked on the site, looked at the quilt and saw the winners - and there was my name in first place."
 The only problem was, at that hour of the morning, there was no one to tell.
 "I wrote a note and told my daughter to come to my room as soon as she found it," Dean says.
 A quilting instructor at Betty's Bobbin Box at the corner of University and Grandview, Dean says she has won many competitions before: "But never like this."
 Prizes from the local and national competition totaled between $18,000-$19,000. Dean is now the proud owner of a top-of-the-line Janome sewing machine, carriers for that machine and for the Marie Osmond autographed machine she won locally, Marie Osmond fabric, a large Marie Osmond doll, a Marie Osmond charm bracelet, and storage devices for spools and fabric.
 The quilt, along with the other winners, has since been auctioned on eBay with proceeds going to the Children's Miracle Network. "A lady in Oklahoma emailed me saying she was the one to win my quilt," Deerfield says.
   Dean would like to thank the many people who voted for her quilt online.
   Betty's Bobbin Box, your one-stop-shop for all your sewing needs, offers a wide variety of classes, from beginning sewing and dressmaking to more specialized classes, such as quilting, heirloom sewing, wearable art and automatic embroidery.
   "We sell and service Janome and do repairs on all brands of sewing machines," says Caren Reneau, who owns the business along with her mother Betty Reneau.
 Betty's is located on the northeast corner of University and Grandview, just two doors south of Mr. Gatti's Pizza. For more information, call (800) 249-9791 or (432) 550-0093. You can visit their website at www.bettysbobbinbox.com.