Lorelai Kucker is an inspiring teenage phenomenon who is a student, businesswoman, designer, and quilter!

•  Started sewing at 5 years old making 20 pillowcases.
•  Started quilting at 12 years old but didn’t love being “told how to sew”. During COVID, she was stuck at home and had lots of free time on her hands and this is when she discovered her love of quilting. She found a box full of cut strips of old fabrics at Grandma’s house – was told those were cut by her great-great grandmother. She took the strips and made her first quilt and gave it to her Dad for Christmas.
• Got her first used longarm at 12 and decided long-arming is her favorite part of the quilting process.
• In 2021, she entered 42 quilts into the Missouri State Fair.
• To pay off her longarm, she started sewing t-shirt quilts for clients.
• By 17 years old (today) has her own pattern line, fabric line and is a published author.
• Lorelai earned her high school diploma and associate’s degree by studying during the day, and she works her business late into the night. She will start attending college next month and plans to take all her equipment with her.

Insights into her business and achievements:

• Lorelai labels herself as a “Math Nerd” and uses math in her designs. She loves how creativity and math can intersect.
• She loves free-motion quilting, admittting that it is sogmething you need to practice to improve at. It can take hours getting to know your machine. 
• Making quilted bags was her gateway into quilted clothing.
• Lorelai started quilted clothing by quilting on thrifted garments,  and learned all about garment structure that way.
• Her goal is to inspire youth – youth classes are her favorite to teach. She loves that youth tend to just “go for it” rather than hesitate and second-guess themselves when learning about quilting.
• She is the Quilted Cow Youth Ambassador, as well as the Kansas City Regional Quilt Festival Youth Ambassador in 2025.
• Lorelai's quilt “Magnetize” won 1^st place in the youth division at QuiltCon.
• Her quilt "Snow Much Fun" won 1^st place in the youth division at the Kansas City Regional Quilt Festival.
• Lorelai enjoys using the matchstick quilting method to make her designs look like trapunto, without actually adding extra padding.
• She also loves using “Tentacles” in her patterns which is a curved, large to small wavy flying geese type of pattern.

What’s Next?

• Lorelai  has a pattern line, including Starry-Eyed, Echo and Woven, which coordinate with her first fabric line, from Northcott called “Quilting in Bloom.”
• Her first book is called Lorelai’s First Time Quilter’s Handbook for Beginners. 
• She has also started a fashion line called Lorelai Rae.