Quilts and little old ladies...

Quilts and little old ladies...  A couple years ago, at a craft fair in Logan, we ran into a little old lady named Marlene who made quilts.  She's a petite gal, and if I were to guess her age I'd say 70 or 75.  Her quilts are real works of art – beautiful fabrics, classic patterns, and hand stitching so precise you'd likely guess it was made on a machine.  Her prices are quite reasonable, especially when compared with, say, an Amish quilt from Pennsylvania.  And the quality of her work is even better than the Amish quilts we've seen.

About three months ago, we bought another quilt from Marlene, and this time we ran down to her place (in Roy, Utah, about an hour away) to pick it up.  She runs her quilt business out of her own house.  In conversation we discovered that she has 10 children – and 37 grandchildren!  Her 7 daughters all occasionally help her with the quilts, but these days they're so busy with their own families that mostly she does the quilting on her own.  She also told us that she was trying to use up her inventory of fabric, as she really didn't expect to be doing the quilting much longer – age is starting to limit her abilities.

Well, on our drive home that day, Debbie and I made up our minds to buy two more of her quilts for our bed.  We love them, and she's willing to make them oversized for us (to cover our pillows completely, along with our thick mattress and box spring).  We have no idea where we can get the equivalent, at any price – let alone at her prices.

So we ordered two more, for a total of four – we've got the seasons covered. :)  Today we drove down to pick up those two; she'd called Debbie this morning to let her know they were done.  This time we had a bit more conversation with her, and learned that she grew up on a wheat and potato farm near Burley, Idaho.  That makes her the third person I've met who hailed from that little farm town – all LDS (Mormon), all good people, all hard workers.  There's something in the water there, I think.  Something good.

One of these days when I have my wits all together, I'll post some photos of these gorgeous quilts...