Barb Hoyt displays her shop, Knots Sew Perfect Quilts, on Dec. 5 in Garden City. She opened the shop this summer, and Hoyt and her friends have constructed many quilts for charity.

Garden City ? At 50, Barb Hoyt has her dream job.

Sure, raising six children and running a day care for 14 years was fulfilling. There are 18 years between her youngest child, age 14, and her oldest, age 32.

She has 16 grandchildren. Maybe that’s why she loves quilting, calling it her “stress relief.”

Now she has turned her love into Knots Sew Perfect Quilts. She opened the quilt shop this summer. It’s “something I’ve always wanted to do,” she said.

Her grandmother taught her how to quilt when she was 8. At her store, she makes and sells quilts, but she also teaches others how to quilt.

“If I can help them accomplish what I enjoy doing, if I can teach that to somebody, then I’ve accomplished a great feat,” Hoyt said. “I’m teaching them to do something and make something they can pass down from one generation to another.”

But she might be best known for her work with her family and various community organizations.

“Something I strive to believe in is if you can help somebody else, help somebody else. Maybe then they’ll go and help somebody,” Hoyt said. “Everybody at one time or another needs some type of help.”

Hoyt is the middle of seven children. Her single mom spent her lifetime working at Wheatlands and taught them the importance of helping others.

Hoyt said she and her brothers and sisters did what they had to in order to keep the family going.

She remembers when she was 8 or 9 and their neighbor’s house burned down. The fatal fire left surviving family members reeling.

The community, along with Hoyt’s family, collected donations. Hoyt remembers her family gathering clothing, food and toys, and giving the little girl, a friend, her Barbie doll.

“It made her cry because we always played Barbies. She didn’t understand how I could give away my favorite toy, but she lost everything and needed something,” Hoyt said. “I was just trying to make her happy.”

When it comes to fundraising, Hoyt admits that having a big family helps. She doesn’t force family to help her, though, and said she tries to ask people to help with tasks they enjoy.

“You can ask anybody. The worst they can do is tell you no,” Hoyt said.

Julie Scully, Hoyt’s best friend and neighbor, said Barb is a planner and doer. They volunteer together for the Eagles Auxiliary.

“She’ll talk to people and let them know what she’s working on. A lot of them volunteer to help, and they know if she’s involved with it, it’s going to be an organized event or activity,” Scully said.

If things go awry, Scully said, Hoyt picks up the pieces.

“She has a way of bringing it together and getting it all accomplished anyway,” Scully said. Scully, who has known Hoyt for 23 years, says her friend is loyal and fun to do things with, whether the “things” are fun or not.

“She never does things to get or receive the credit. It’s always a team of people, a ‘we’ effort,” she said.

Barb’s husband, Mike Hoyt, jokes about how it can get lonely having an “on-the go” wife.

“She’s got to do something. That’s what she does. She likes to be busy, whether it’s community-wise or family-wise,” Mike Hoyt said. “She has too many projects going on in her head.”

If there’s a fault, it’s that she has a hard time saying no, Mike Hoyt said, though somehow she gets the job done.

In the end, Barb Hoyt said she does what she does because she enjoys it.