The budget had just passed after a tumultuous 20 days.
But before the 31 members of the Wyoming Senate walked away, Sen. Tara Nethercott (R-Cheyenne) wanted to shout out a certain seamstress.
“If you haven’t had a chance yet, good senators, take a minute to go see the beautiful work of our Senator, [Affie] Ellis,” Nethercott said. ”It means so much to see us there, quilted together for the future of Wyoming.”
“So go find your patch on that quilt,” she added, “as we have been sewn together in history.”
Sen. Ellis (R-Cheyenne) beamed and chuckled.
The morning of the Legislature’s final day, she told the Senate about her quilting, a process she finds “peaceful.”
“Despite of our differences — I know the last day of the session’s always a difficult one — I just want you to know that when I made this quilt I thought of all of you with a good heart,” Ellis said.
Afterward, some senators took Nethercott’s advice, heading over to find their patch on the quilt, draped just behind Sen. Larry Hick’s (R-Baggs) desk over the glass panel on the east end of the Senate floor.
Ellis told WyoFile how the senatorial quilt came to be. She’d had the idea for a while, then slowly amassed patches while traveling for legislative duties during the interim. By Christmas time, the job was done.
“It was just fun to work on, quite honestly,” Ellis said. “When I make things, there’s some intention behind it. I was thinking about the good thoughts I have of my colleagues, and I wanted this quilt to represent those good feelings.”
So what patch represents which senator? Find out from the seamstress herself in the short video below.
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