ItsPatti

Hi Jan, I work for Marti but my last job was as a quilt magazine writer. I was recently asked by Web Cents for the 21st Century Retailer magazine to write an article about Marti and they just published it; I got a nice 4-page spread! I thought I could add something to this part of the discussion, based on some things I learned about Marti's early quilting history. She actually started out selling quilt kits and championed strip techniques when the rotary cutter came to the US.

Quoting from the article: "Marti's first company, Yours Truly, Inc., was the first national purveyor of products designed by and for quilters; the first publisher of books written by quilters (like Fons and Porter, others) to be sold in quilt shops; and the first company to promote and teach the rotary cutter and strip techniques through Yours Truly's "It's Okay If You Sit on My Quilt" seminars for teachers and shop owners, week-long seminars led by Mary Ellen Hopkins. 'It's hard to believe today, but in those days, machine quilting was a no-no. However, when Harriet Hargrave came to one of the first seminars and showed me a sample of her beautiful free-motion machine quilting, I was sold,' and Harriet joined the seminar staff."

YT employed 175 people! There was also a YT line of fabric -- the company literally sold everything you needed to make a quilt at a time when there weren't many quilt shops yet. Marti combined strips and templates in 1995 and has added a new tool to the line every year since, coming up on 20 years now. I've worked for her almost that long, so I am biased toward Perfect Patchwork Templates, of course!

It was a fun article to write. Maybe you remember YT. I'm a quiltosaur, I started quilting when there weren't many quilt shops and everything stopped whenever a new YT catalog arrived in the mail so I could read it cover to cover -- I remember being so grateful to be able to get short, fine applique needles!