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Quilting is a lifelong process By
Kalleen Kidd
Over a century ago women would salvage any scraps they could from old curtains, bedding, clothing, sacks, and sewing projects. They would stitch the odd shapes and mismatched colors into quilts that would cover their beds. Most of these women used makeshift tools, had no formal education and knew little about mathematics or geometry. When Dorothy Olsen, from Providence, began making quilts she too was making quilts to cover each of her eight children's beds. Later, about 24 years ago, she began to quilt on a more professional level. She taught herself how to quilt while using alternative tools because there were no books or rotary cutters at that time. "My husband was cutting rulers for me because there were none, I decided there had to be a better way of doing this and started messing around with new techniques" Olsen said. "I was pioneering this new way of quilting." Since then she says the quilting market has exploded. Now there are 30 to 40 new quilting books a month and tools to speed the process. "I can cut a whole quilt out in 15 minutes where before it would take days," Olsen said. Olsen believes that one of her greatest tools, as a quilt maker, is her math background. Math is needed to figure out how many squares or triangles are needed, how big a piece of fabric will need to be and if it will fit. She says it is basic math, but is amazed at how many people can't do it. Olsen received an excellent background in Math during High School in Mendham, New Jersey where she grew up. When she took the college entrance exam to get into Utah State she received her highest scores in math. But her advisor told her not to pursue a degree that would use her math skills since there were no jobs for women in those fields at that time. So she graduated in elementary education. As Olsen's skills improved and she was able to make quilts faster, people started to ask her to teach them how to make them. She began teaching as well as making quilts for other people. Over time "it became obvious that I couldn't do it out of my home any longer," Olsen said. "It was kind of like a hobby that got out of control." That's when she opened The Quilt House, a small quilting store. It was located in a home across the street from where she lives. Within five years her business had outgrown the small house and her husband built a new home next door, that would be the new Quilt House. He built it so that it could be resold as a house when she wanted to retire. A stranger to the area would never know of the business inside the ordinary looking home if it weren't for the large black lettering below the front window, which read Quilt House. Customers are greeted at the front step with signs that say, "Buzz on in" and "Welcome to the Quilt house please ring the bell and walk right in." The walls of the whole house are covered with shelves, quilting supplies and examples. The selves contain thousands of bolts of fabric. In the basement Olsen has a Long Arm Quilter. The machine enables her to quilt ten times faster than by hand. She bought it eight years ago. The machine was the first one in the valley at that time, now there are seven others. Her math background is one of the reasons Olsen believes her Quilt house is so successful. "That's why people drive past Smithfield, Wal-Mart, Bernina, and come here, I'll do the math for them," Olsen said. The quilt house works on about two to three hundred quilts a year. It receives customers from all over the valley, Brigham City and Tremonton. Occasionally she will receive orders for out of State customer who have heard about the house or visited it while they were in Utah. Unlike most people Olsen did not get a loan to open her business. Her business grew from the sale of scraps she bought in Pennsylvania. While visiting her Mother in Pennsylvania Olsen would go to a giant fabric warehouse that would sell scrapes of fabric for 10 cents a pound. She wouldn't dare go to the warehouse by herself. Olsen was afraid that she would fall into the four feet high bins containing piles of fabric. She would have her mother hold onto her while she leaned over the sides of the bins, so she could reach the fabric inside. She would then ship the scraps home for another 10 cents a pound. When she receives the shipment she would then sell it to others for one dollar a pound. "People thought it was the best deal," Olsen said. Each time she returned to Pennsylvania she would buy another load and soon she had the money needed to open her business. Olsen is incredibly resourceful. She has the ability to find potential in almost anything even junk. "She wastes nothing," said Cora Hendricks an employee at the Quilt House. "She will start out with a big piece of fabric and continues to use each scrap until it is almost nothing. All that she throws away are the pieces too small to use. If she doesn't know what to do with something she sits and looks at it and creates something to do with it." Once while her family was cleaning up a yard and throwing junk into a fire, she spotted a tree with interesting bark and told her son to not burn it. She wanted him to save the bark for her. Her husband and children all started complaining saying she wouldn't find a use for the bark. Still she demanded and they saved her 2 barrels of bark. Later she took the bark and the pits from peaches, apricots and cherries and made plaques. She took all of the plaques to a craft fair where she sold them. She made about 3 to 4 hundred dollars off of each barrel of bark. Olsen's mother taught her at a young age to work with her hands and she has tried to pass that onto her own children. All of her children know how to sew. Paula Murray, Olsen's daughter said that she doesn't remember going to the movies very often. "We were to busy. We wanted to sew," Murray said. "We never said Mom, I'm bored." Murray remembers learning how to sew by sewing quilt blocks together at the age of seven. She got her own sewing machine in the eighth grade. Every time the family has a gathering Olsen will have crafts and activities, where you have to be creative, for the grandchildren. On birthdays instead of toys she gives kits to make something such as stepping stones or an art supplies. Besides quilting Olsen also knits, crochets and arranges flowers and weeds. "People would pay big bucks for weeds because she would take the time to dry them and arrange them," Murray said. Up until just recently she would do flower arranging as a business out of her house. "I did hundreds of weddings," Olsen said. "I did it so I wouldn't get burnt out. You have to be careful with a job like this." The Quilt House has given Olsen opportunities to serve others. She tries to help groups that need service projects by buying supplies giving donating some of her leftovers. "We sent a few things for Russia yesterday," Olsen said. "We try to pick three to four projects each year." Olsen donates quilts to help a friend who does international humanitarian aid. She is able to stuff her suitcases full of quilts every time she leaves on a trip. Everyone is always asking Olsen when she will retire. She says it is the 5,000-dollar question. "I still like what I am doing," Olsen said. "I see to many people my age bored with life and I don't want that. I'm not out of steam yet." Olsen says that she will never get bored of quilting because it will always have new challenges. She says that once she has learned something she always moves onto something more complicated, there is no end to it. The Quilt House is located
at 135 South and 100 East in Providence. It is open daily from 10 am
to 5 p.m. |
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