From highways to quilts: KDOT employee uses engineering skills to design and create

Joyce Muhlenbruch meets with customers at her quilt shop, Birds of a Feather in Dodge City.

By Lisa Knoll,

Southwest Kansas 

Public Affairs Manager

Joyce Muhlenbruch, KDOT’s Area Construction Engineer in Dodge City, was recently featured in the Dodge City Daily Globe, but it wasn’t for her ability to highway engineering skills  It was for her ability and talent for designing and engineering breathtaking quilts.

Muhlenbruch says there were always quilting and sewing projects in their home when she was growing up in Hanoverton, Ohio.  She learned to sew by the time she was five and was quilting with the church ladies by the time she was in middle school. 

However, she didn’t make her first quilt until she was expecting her first child.  She decided to make a Raggedy Ann and Andy quilt with a denim back, which she hand-pieced and quilted herself. 

“I wanted to give him a gift that was part of me.  That denim was so hard to quilt.  My fingers hurt,” she remembers. 

When her second son was born five weeks early, she had to hand tie his quilt to finish it for him.  Muhlenbruch continued quilting as her boys grew up, primarily making baby quilts for friends, but always found herself changing or adding something to the pattern to make it uniquely hers. 

A quilt designed by Mulenbruch is
on display.

In 2010, Muhlenbruch accepted her current position at KDOT and moved to Dodge City.  Her boys had grown up and her husband, Michael remained in Winfield for two years wrapping up business.  With time on her hands, Muhlenbruch spent evenings at the sewing machine in her Dodge City apartment.  She joined Miss Kitty’s Quilt Guild and eventually began spending her Saturdays helping at Country Quiltin’ By Design, a quilt shop, in Plains.  When the opportunity to buy the shop became a possibility, Muhlenbruch and her sister, Leslie, began to consider how this could work, eventually buying and moving the shop to Dodge City.

Now located at Eryn’s Downtown Center at 509 N. 2^nd Ave. in historic Dodge City, the shop has been re-named Birds of a Feather Quilt Shop and is home to over 800 bolts of high-quality cotton fabric, thread, notion, patterns and a longarm quilting machine. 

 The shop also features quilts for sale and plenty of room for quilting classes and retreats.  An inviting seating area overlooks Second Avenue, offering customers a comfortable place to sit and contemplate the next quilt or just share tips and tricks.

Muhlenbruch stands in front of her storefront in Dodge City.

Leslie handles the store during the week while Muhlenbruch is busy with her KDOT job.  Muhlenbruch joins Leslie in the evenings and on the weekends and can usually be found at the longarm machine working on customers’ projects. As the only Quilts of Valor shop in Dodge City, Muhlenbruch hopes to be able to make one Quilt of Valor quilt each month.

Muhlenbruch says, “The best part of quilting is the engineering of the quilt. It’s more fun than engineering roads.  I get to use my creativity to adapt and design patterns.”