Sew many ideas — Quilter loves sharing knowledge, projects with others

FARMINGTON — In Marilyn Landry Toone's view, there are two kinds of quilts: those that get worn out and those that become heirlooms.

In her more than 40 years of quilting, she has made both. "I love the kind of quilts that get daily use, that my children and grandchildren get rolled up in, that get hugged and loved to pieces. Of course, the first ones of those that I made are all gone by now."

But that's OK, she says. The love that is stitched into those kinds of quilts is meant to be used. It's an intimate, warm emotion that deserves to be kept close.

A different kind of love goes into her quilts that are meant for show on the tops of beds or hung on walls. It's a love of creativity, of the challenge and process of quilting. It's a feeling that's meant to be widely shared. That's why Toone sends a lot of those kinds of quilts to various quilt shows around the state.

Her work wins a lot of ribbons at those shows, and that's always fun, she says, but that's not why she does it. "I like the sharing of ideas and projects with other people who are interested."

That's also what is fun about local quilt groups, she says. "I love taking my projects to our meetings. They try to figure out why I did this or why I used those colors or why something works. And I do the same with theirs. It's so fun to share those things with people who really get it."

For a long time, says Toone, "I was a 'closet quilter.' I learned to quilt by myself, and I worked by myself. It was so neat when I found other quilters, when I found someone that talks the same language."

Since then she's been involved with a lot of them. She will be president of her local Crazy Quilters group this year, she has served on the board of the Utah Quilt Guild, and she participates regularly at quilt days at Colonial House in Salt Lake City.

Like many quilters, Toone started off as a seamstress. She grew up in Ontario, Canada, where "my mother was a seamstress. But she would not let me touch her sewing machine." When Toone was 15, however, "my mother spent three weeks in Utah, and I spent those three weeks using her machine." The interest took hold.

She went to school at Brigham Young University, "and I took sewing classes, but I didn't like them. I took one econ class and ended up switching my major to history."