We are proud to announce our collaboration with Tony Lama boots to create a collection of products that really say "Tony Lama" and classic cowgirl. The collection includes a tall boot bag, garment bag, quilt, vest, and pajamas. Snag yours here--> 

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Where It’s Made Matters

For Kristin Kiseljack, building Ida Mae Home meant building something her family could stand behind, not just something they could sell.

Kristin Kiseljack does not talk about quilts as products first. She talks about places, people, and moments.

She remembers her grandmother’s house in Waco. It was small, but it never felt that way. The kitchen always had something cooking, vegetables came from the garden and evenings stretched a little longer than expected listening to grandma Ida Mae’s stories  because no one was in a hurry to leave.

“My grandmother was my person,” Kristin says. “We would sit and listen to stories about how she grew up, riding horses to school, working on the farm. It was just a different way of living.”

What stayed with her was not only the quilts her grandmother made, but the environment around them. Quilting was something that happened alongside conversation, alongside laughter, alongside everyday life. That feeling followed Kristin long before she ever considered starting a brand.

Her career began in a very different environment. She studied accounting, moved to London, and eventually built a career in retail buying and merchandising. The work gave her a sharp understanding of product, margin, and scale. It also exposed her to the complexity of global manufacturing and the distance that often exists between an idea and what arrives in a box.

Years later, when she acquired a quilt business and moved her family back to Texas, she stepped into that system fully. The business relied on overseas production. The relationships were strong, but the process came with variables she could not control; quality would shift, timelines would stretch, and decisions made far away would show up in ways she could not always stand behind.

Over time, the pull Kristin felt to bring the manufacturing home to Texas was not something she could ignore. “You are putting your name on something,” she says. “And when you cannot control how it is made, that gets hard.”

In 2020, when the world slowed and supply chains began to break down in real time, Kristin saw a moment to change direction. The decision to move production to Texas was not immediate or easy, but it was clear. “If they can do it somewhere else, we can figure out how to do it here,” she says, thus Ida Mae Home, in honor of Kristin’s grandmother, was born. 

What followed required rebuilding the process from the ground up, learning through mistakes, and investing in the right equipment after getting it wrong the first time. It required patience and a willingness to start over when something did not meet the standard. What was created, though, was something entirely different and something Kristin and the team really feel proud of.

Today, every piece begins as a blank piece of fabric and moves through a process that lives under one roof. Printing, quilting, cutting, and sewing all happen within reach of one another. The proximity changes everything and adjustments can be made quickly. Quality can be seen and corrected immediately and the distance between idea and outcome has been shortened in a way that feels intentional. More importantly, it created something Kristin had been missing, ownership of the process. “Now we know exactly what is going out the door,” she says. “There is pride in that. Our team cares about every piece.” 

That sense of care extends beyond the walls of the business and into her home life, where the brand is not separated from daily routine.

Kristin’s daughter, Harper, has grown up inside the western lifestyle, balancing school with competitive reining, long days at shows, and the discipline that comes with caring for horses. It is a lifestyle that demands consistency and resilience, where progress is measured over time rather than in single moments. “I think horses teach you everything,” Kristin says. “You learn how to keep going, how to handle not winning, how to show up again the next day.”

Beckett, her son, has been just as involved, helping with the day-to-day work that comes with animals and property. As he prepares to leave for college, Kristin feels the shift that comes with that kind of transition. There is excitement for what comes next, but also an awareness of how much those everyday moments have meant.

That perspective shapes the way she thinks about the business.

The products are not designed in isolation. They are used in the environments they are made for. Quilts are meant to be used and washed which contributes to their softness. Bags are carried through arenas and packed into trucks. Jackets and vests are used in the arena and in the office seamlessly. The products are part of life, not just a product.

The growth of Ida Mae Home has followed a similar pattern. It has not been forced or overly structured and it has evolved through paying attention. The entire Ida Mae Home process is thoughtful and intentional from leftover fabric from quilt production creating jackets and bags to creating patterns the team at Ida Mae Home and their customers really love, each new product came from asking a simple question about what could be made next with what was already there. That approach has allowed the brand to expand without losing its center.

At the same time, Kristin’s values have extended into areas that matter to her personally. Her connection to horses includes rescue work, something that began in a very human moment. “I was leaning on the fence where we were looking at a few horses who were in a kill pen, and this donkey came over and put his head on my shoulder,” she says. “I looked at my daughter and said, we are taking him home.” That donkey became a loved part of the family. “He was just so sweet,” Kristin said, thinking about his fun personality. 

That instinct to care, to take responsibility for something in front of you, shows up in more than one part of her life. When you step back, Ida Mae Home is not a business built around a category, but rather something built around a way of living, rooted in tradition and care for quality.

At its core, the brand represents continuity. It brings together past and present through a process that honors both. For Kristin, that means building something her grandmother would recognize while also creating something her daughter can step into and style in her own way.

That same sense of continuity is what makes the collaboration between Ida Mae Home and Tony Lama feel natural. Both brands are grounded in craftsmanship, shaped by heritage, and built for people who live this lifestyle every day. There is a shared understanding that what you wear and what you bring into your home should hold up over time and carry meaning beyond the moment.

In bringing Ida Mae Home together with Tony Lama, the result is not simply a collaboration of products. It is a reflection of a shared way of life, where tradition is carried forward through thoughtful design and everyday use. It is a continuation of stories that began long before either brand existed, and a reminder that the things we choose to keep close are often the ones that last the longest.

Each piece still begins the same way, with a blank piece of fabric or leather. What it becomes is shaped by the hands that make it, the lives lived in it, and the story it continues to tell.

 

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