Angels are everywhere in Mavis and Harley Jundt's home along Northview Lane in Bismarck. Little ones, big ones, ceramic ones, crocheted ones. A whole treeful cluster on the Christmas tree that shows through the couple's living room window, for the delight of the passersby who tour the streets by the busful and carload to see the neighborhood's magical lighting display each Christmas.

This Christmas, four more angels - the Jundts' grandchildren - had some very special gifts prepared for them from their grandmother.

Over the years, Mavis Jundt thought it would be fun -someday - to make a quilt for each of the four using some of the T-shirts they'd worn.

She had the T-shirts - bags and bags of them - and was still contemplating that "someday" when, at Easter this year, she received a diagnosis of lymphoma.

After that, when she thought of those unmade quilts, she considered the same thought that comes to anyone with a cancer diagnosis:"Will I be able to finish them?"

Completing those quilts became a kind of obsession, she said.

She knew she'd have to have chemo but she didn't know how the treatment would affect her. She even asked her pastor, the Rev. Nadine Lehr at Lord of Life Lutheran Church in Bismarck, if the church quilting ladies would be willing to finish the quilts for her if she'd couldn't. Of course they would, Lehr said.

In the weeks and months that followed, Jundt, 64, went through eight chemo sessions, which sapped her usual energy. She's normally the kind of person who never sits down, her husband Harley said.

But weak and tired or not, she spent hours in her sewing room, sewing like a banshee, he said.

"Every spare minute," Mavis said.

During this determined quilting and all through chemo, Mavis, who works part-time at Catholic Charities as a guardian for people with developmental disabilities, didn't miss any work either, her husband said.

And now at Christmas, all four quilts have been done for a month. Mavis finished all the sewing and had a quilter machine-quilt the final stitching of the quilts, one for each grandchild, and each with a personal message from Grandma on the reverse side.

A gift for Mavis, in her house surrounded by her angels, is that the lymphoma is in remission and her scans are coming back clear.

The grandchildren knew that grandma was sick and that she had to take medicine to help her. They were kind of scared at first, she said.

So on Monday night, she took each grandchild aside, one by one, and presented them individually with their surprise quilt and reinforced the quilt's printed "love message." Each message is slightly different, but carries the same meaning:You are precious to me and grandma loves you.

Before she wrapped them, Mavis fanned them out in her living room.

Grandchildren Tate and Lexie Jundt of Bismarck, ages 9 and 7, and Jaron and Krystel Jahner of Fargo, 10 and 8, will have these heirlooms that combine childhood memories from their well-worn and -loved T-shirts, their favorite colors in the background fabrics and grandma's love in the work and the idea and the message.

Because the T-shirts were accumulated over time, the images trace their lives from babyhood on:Krystel's quilt is pink, her favorite color, and her T-shirts display her loves from Barbie to "High School Musical." Lexie's is blue, made with blocks from Sesame Street characters to her favorite food, chocolate. Tate's deep blue includes his love of fishing, and Jaron's black-and-gray is sports, sports, sports.

Mavis said she hadn't done a lot of quilting before this project, but now she's thinking maybe she will make another quilt, this one from sweatshirts that belonged to her mother, who died two years ago.

Though the chemo slowed her, it didn't stop her from accomplishing this project she had set her heart on.

And on reflection, Mavis said, "maybe it's a blessing to have to slow down."

(Reach reporter Karen Herzog at 250-8267 or karen.herzog@bismarcktribune.com.)