On our family farm in rural NC, our grandparents, Bill and Vermell instilled in all of us the importance of self reliance. They grew their own vegetables and canned and stored them for fall/winter months. The livestock and garden provided them with a self sustaining, albeit modest, lifestyle. As children, we grandkids would regularly stay on the farm with Nanny and PawPaw and go to church on Sunda
y mornings. Every Sunday, our Grandmother started her day at 5:00am. She rose before everyone else and started preparing Sunday lunch which always included homemade coleslaw, biscuits, a huge pot of pintos, cabbage and skillet fried chicken. The older children helped her out with the morning preparations, collecting eggs, slopping hogs, feeding chickens and picking beans or harvesting other lunch items, as she worked in the kitchen. She cooked and cleaned, then got 4-6 grandchildren washed and ready for church, all before the other adults usually got out of bed. Nanny would also sew. She did it for a living at times, but mostly making clothes for her children and hemming or altering any store bought items that needed it (AKA Sears and Roebuck or Kmart Catalog clothes). Her love of sewing was passed on to my mother Renee who sewed professionally for 30+ years. I watched her sew at work and home, as she made some, and altered many, of our clothes, with no real interest in sewing myself. Then one day as I watched a random YouTube video of a bagmaker creating the most wonderful handbag, a spark was lit. I purchased my first Brother sewing machine, downloaded a few beginner patterns and gave it a go. Needless to say I was HOOKED! Now we own multiple industrial machines, sergers, and embroidery machines. We manufacture, by hand, each and every bag and quilt that we ship or sell in our shop. Using time tested techniques and just the right amount of Irish flair, our designs are uniquely Hurley Heritage, and designed to last. As with any handmade design, they are, as we like to say, "Perfectly Imperfect" and One-of-a-Kind! Whether you purchase a Heritage Quilt or Handmade Bag, you are sure to enjoy it for many, many years to come. In the end I had to pay homage to my wonderful Scotch-Irish Grandparents Bill and Vermell Hurley for giving us all the creative spark we share as a family, and for instilling in each of us, the lifelong moto: "If you want it done right, you better do it yourself." And thus Hurley Heritage was born!
