I have a real soft spot in my heart for Rescue Airedales. I have fostered a couple of Rescues and adopted Erin in 1999. During the next 7 years Erin and I competed in Agility, Obedience and Rally and earned 20 titles in those sports! Erin was a wonderful girl who I will miss always. Erin's story, half written by her first owners and half written by me, can be found at "Edith/Erin".

Our current dogs are Argus, a cuddly 9-year old boy and Cait, an 18-month old puppy. They enjoy zooming around the house together and doing cute dog tricks to convince me to give them treats. They are a lot of fun and keep me busy. I now compete in Agility and Rally with Cait, and we are training for competition Obedience.

Right before Erin came to live with us in 1999, I joined the fledgling Airedale Quilting Bee. We have been making quilts to benefit Airedale Rescue for 9 years now. It is wonderful to be able to share my two passions, quilting and Airedales, with other women who feel the same.

My biggest function in this group is to help with the artistic side of the quilt. I sometimes design the general setting of the quilt when it is to be one large picture such as “Friends for Life”, “Annette’s House” and the “Circus” quilt. I draw pictures that become patterns for some of the blocks and I write guidelines for making and designing the blocks. I have assembled several of the quilt tops and have even quilted a few.

In real life, I am a USDA Scientist and Professor of Entomology (creepy crawly bugs) at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN.

My lab does research on wheat genes that defend the plant against attack by the Hessian fly.  In addition to hugging Airedales and quilting, my hobbies include training for and competing in dog agility and obedience and rally, teaching agility classes, playing hammer dulcimer, hiking in the woods and canoe camping with my Airedales and my husband Greg.

Block drawn by Christie Williams.