Lorie Kleiner Eckert

Here is the story behind my quilts:
After 21 years of marriage, I divorced in 1994. Having been a stay at home mom for all those years I needed a job. I decided to turn my hobby of quilt making into a paid profession, thinking I would go on the quilt lecture circuit. There was a problem with my plan, however. Though I am a very fine quilt designer and technician, I am not the world's greatest quilt artist, so how would I compete with better quilters targeting the same audience? My solution was to make quilts with words - because no one else was making such quilts - allowing me to stand alone in my field. Thus, I started to make my wordy quilts. It was only after I was finished with the first dozen that I realized my quilted words were generic and could be appreciated by anyone, not just quilt makers. Thus, instead of calling myself a Quilt Lecturer, I labeled myself a Motivational Speaker and began to market my talk to every sort of group from PTAs to Procter & Gamble.