Loretta learned as a little girl helping her grandmother Prissy, threading needles and cutting pieces, and she made her first whole quilt, a Nine Patch, at about eleven. She said she didn’t love sewing at first. She started quilting for real when she needed to keep her own home warm, and her early quilts were made from everyday clothes, especially men’s work clothes. In 2015 she, Mary Lee Bendolph and Lucy Mingo received a National Heritage Fellowship. The quilt on our pieces is her Roman Stripes Variation (1970), known around Gee’s Bend as a Crazy Quilt.