“I would come home after 14-hour days on ‘Donny and Marie,’ which was the No. 1 television show in the world, and be exhausted and we’d work on a project together. She made me do projects (instead of drugs). She was brilliant.” Marie’s love affair with crafts continues to this day, as she debuts a line of fabric she designed for Quilting Treasures.

“Because of my mother’s passion, I have loved textile, design, fabric, and putting those things together,” Marie says. “So I asked myself, ‘How do I put all of that passion and love into this collection?’” The result is Heirloom Garden, a 24-piece collection featuring two colorways. The garden-inspired designs symbolize Marie’s idea that the interest needs to grow to the next generation. The vintage lace, she says, ties into the past generation. She hopes the designs will help pass on her love of sewing and crafting, which her mother passed onto her.

To design the fabric, Marie did her homework by studying color trends and home accent trends to learn what people want in their homes. She picked colors that also appeal to young people. The fabric line was introduced at the International Quilt Market in Salt Lake City in May. During this event, Marie showed off a memory quilt—similar to a scrapbook—containing items that belonged to her late mother. “It drew a huge crowd in Salt Lake,” Marie says. “There was nothing else there like it.”

The quilt includes a piece of jewelry that her father, George, had given to her mother; a piece of needlepoint that her mother had made; a tree with the family’s names, since her mother enjoyed genealogy; a watch that Olive had given her because Olive always said not to waste time and that time is precious; a picture of Olive; Olive’s mission tag from church; a pin of Elvis Presley (he and Olive were fond of each other); a cross-stitch that hung in the kitchen of every house in which the family had lived; a recipe, because Olive loved to clip them; one of Marie’s baby dresses; and many other items. Marie also displayed another quilt that is a tribute to her mother. During a house fire in 2005, most of her mother’s handmade items were destroyed. But Marie found a template of a butterfly that her brother Jimmy had made for Olive—the last thing her mother worked on before her death. Marie wrote a poem to go with the butterfly.

Marie hopes that the next generation will enjoy scrapbooking on quilts. “They’re dimensional and tangible,” she says. It’s Marie’s belief that if parents work on projects with their children, then the kids will learn to love crafts and pass it on themselves. She says it’s also a great way for parents and children to spend time together. A mother of eight, Marie works on projects with her kids. “My kids love to sew,” she says.