During our Christmas in July sale, we actually ran out of thank you cards.
Which sounds small, but it stopped me.
Because saying thank you shouldn’t just be something we tuck into a box.
I’ve gone home more nights this month with a full heart. Grateful beyond words for all of you—but I don’t think I’ve said it clearly enough.
So here it is:
Thank you for supporting our dream.
For loving textiles as much as we do.
For appreciating one-of-a-kind, hand-crafted things.
For helping this little global, heritage-inspired, quilt-loving operation grow into something meaningful.
In true ADD and Jolie fashion - that thought led me to a story.
A few weekends ago, something lovely and strange happened.
Texts, DMs, comments, walk-ins from Austin to Alabama to Michigan to Idaho—it felt like all of us were suddenly reaching out, reconnecting.
One woman came in quietly. She was touching stitches, admiring the details like so many of us do. She looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her.
The next morning, she came back—right as we opened—and it hit me. We’d talked last year about small town life (I mean really small town life). We picked up the conversation like no time had passed, weaving through creativity, craft, and eventually—stone houses.
She mentioned traveling and coming up these stone houses that a woman had built in the desert, choosing each stone intentionally. And she looked at me, mid-conversation, and said:
“You’re like her. The stone house woman. You choose each piece the same way.”
I was floored. Flattered. Totally unprepared to accept the compliment.
But later that night, I couldn’t shake it. (I also couldn't remember the name of this Stone House Legend) - so, I did what we all do—I googled.
And that’s where the rabbit hole began.
Here’s what I found:
In searching I came across several women who could’ve fit the description.
Blanche Russell
She was a Ziegfeld Follies dancer whose car broke down near the Vermilion Cliffs in Arizona in the 1920s. Instead of leaving, she stayed—building stone homes under giant mushroom-shaped boulders. No blueprints. Just instinct, intention, and a desert kind of grit. I’ve already ordered a book about her. Run a search - look at these mushroom like stone homes - I'm obsessed.
Margaret Fulton Spencer
An early woman architect who designed and built Rancho Las Lomas outside Tucson in the 1930s. She sketched floor plans in the dirt with a stick, used local desert stone, and built a cluster of cottages so beautiful that even Clark Gable and Frank Lloyd Wright came to visit. Her style was raw, intuitive, and quietly brilliant. I don't think this was the woman we were discussing - but her name and story comes up in almost all of my searches. Even if this isn't her - I'm certain she has a remarkable story.
Marguerite… maybe?
There were other names, too—some blurry, some maybe imagined. There are whispers of women who built odd little homes in the cliffs or wandered the high desert in pickups, gathering stones. Marguerite is one of these names - she's mentioned with the great state of Oklahoma. But when you go further in research some sites say this is a tall tale. Even if there isn't a Marguerite - there was someone legendary enough that made people want to tell and retell the story.
So, back to the compliment.
I didn’t know how to receive it at first.
But now, after several days of beautiful, exhausting work… I'm humbly accepting it.
I have built something.
I do choose every piece.
And this space we’ve created—where strangers turn into friends over fabric, where appreciation for craft brings us together—it is a kind of home.
There’s energy in these quilts.
In the hands that stitched them.
In the people who admire them.
In every color, texture, memory.
So to the woman who said it—thank you. You gave me a gift.
And to everyone reading this: thank you for being part of the story.
Also, go Google Blanche Russell, Margaret Fulton Spencer, the mysterious Marguerite who may or may not have built a stone house in Oklahoma - and every other woman who quietly built something bold. I think you'd love them.
And thank you for listening to my circular ramblings that don't always make sense. Tonight, it's just me saying "thank you" in really long form.
Above is a home built by Blanche Russell - surely this is the woman from our conversation. Incredible.