'Quilt King' has mastered the art of his latest passion

LEESBURG — Watch Sam Lee and Jimmy Gainey interact, completing each other's sentences, filling in gaps that finish thoughts, correcting minute details, and the expression "like an old married couple" comes to mind.

Lee and Gainey are not that old, but the expression in this case is apt: They are trending pretty long on the marriage spectrum, having recently celebrated their 10th anniversary.

It's no surprise, then, that Lee, who has "made maybe one quilt in my life" — "almost one quilt," Gainey interjects — admits that he's the yin to Gainey's yang when it comes to the art of quilting, "basically doing whatever he tells me to do to help out. He's the artist; I'm his moral support. I get the things he needs while he's working."

Gainey, the past president of the Wiregrass Quilt Guild and the group's current superstar practitioner, has quite a reputation among modern-day quilters. He's affectionately known as the "Quilt King," an honor earned by the quality — and quantity ... "thousands if you count the ones I've helped others with" — of quilts he's made over the past few years. He's won a pile of blue ribbons that "I basically throw in a drawer and when it overflows, I just throw the ones out that hit the floor."

Gainey certainly has the equipment to produce his lauded works of art. He has a quilting machine in his workroom that "cost $42,000 when I bought it and now goes for $67,000" and various other modern sewing machines scattered about his and Lee's lovely Lee County home.

"The first time we went shopping together, he told me maybe I should stay in the car," Lee said, retelling one of his and Gainey's favorite stories. ("I told him I definitely was buying a machine that day," Gainey interjects.)

Lee didn't listen, but he was soon introduced to the world of quilting sticker shock.

"He was looking at one machine, and I looked at the price tag and thought it said $300," Lee continued. "Turns out it was $3,000. I asked him if he intended to spend that much money. He said, 'Oh, with the accessories, the one I want will cost about $20,000.' I asked him if it came with a steering wheel, and he said, 'Just be glad I only bought one.'"

Gainey and Lee bring different, disparate elements to the table when it comes to their relationship, but watch them together and it's easy to detect an opposites-attract kind of relationship that works, as evidenced by their 10-year anniversary.

Lee moved with his family to south Georgia from New Mexico when he was 4 years old, and Gainey came north from Florida when he was 14. Lee married and raised two grown children — "although I knew all the time that I was gay" ... "He was chickensh—," Gainey jokes — but Gainey "came out early; I had no intention of hiding who I was."

The pair met earlier in life — no big deal — but when they ran into each other for a second time, "There were sparks," Lee said. They got married in Washington, D.C., because "gay marriage was not legal then in Georgia, and we honestly didn't think it ever would be," Gainey said.

Now, Lee, who has worked as an accountant with U-Sav-It Pharmacies for 20 years, and Gainey team up on quilting projects and other home improvement projects, for which Gainey also has a keen knack.

Gainey started sewing at age 5, and by 13 he had become a ballroom dancer and created ball gowns. He earned a license in cosmetology at Albany Technical College and was recruited to work at the cosmetics department at Belk Department Store in the Albany Mall. He was hired away from that company by Estee Lauder and became one of the company's top sales reps. He also opened the Illusions hair salon wit a friend.

When he discovered quilting, Gainey, who said he "didn't want to learn any bad habits," attended retreats to learn the craft. Some of the best advice he got during that time: "Make the quilts that you like. Get an idea, and you'll figure it out."

Of the 150 or so quilts he's made for himself and the thousands of others he's been commissioned to work on, Gainey says that even with new technology that allows patterns to be programmed into a computer and controlled via a cellphone through an app, he's not sure how much longer he'll keep at the art he's perfected.

"Most people wouldn't consider this, but quilting's hard on the body," he said. "Even with the technology that's available, you have 99 pounds of weight to maneuver even when working this big machine manually. It kind of grinds on you.

"I've started doing a lot with bags, working with material that doesn't wear you out like quilting does."

As for Lee: "I knew nothing about quilting when I met Jimmy, nothing about sewing. I guess you could say I'm his moral support. I'm the brains of the outfit; I bounce ideas off him."

An old married couple? Nah, Lee and Gainey are too energetic and active for that designation. But one of those couples that complements each other in all the ways that count? That sounds about right.