LEEDS – Louise Grant’s living room was chock-full of potholders this week.

They filled baskets. They were tacked on a display board and piled on an ironing board. More were stacked in an adjacent sewing room.

Grant, 96, loves going to the Leeds Community Church, and she loves making quilted potholders. There’s a connection.

She’s selling her potholders at the church’s quilt fair today and Saturday. Potholder sales will help pay for the repairs recently done to the church elevator.

The lift gets Grant and other disabled churchgoers to the sanctuary, which is two flights up from the ground.

“I have a pacemaker that isn’t working right,” she said. “It’s hard to climb the stairs.”

She loves going to church because, in addition to the inspiring words, it’s where she sees everyone. She can’t socialize like she used to. “I can’t go anywhere without that thing,” she said, pointing to her walker.

Grant is the oldest member of the church and one of the founding members. She and her late husband, Alden, moved to Leeds in 1952. That’s when she started quilting.

“I always have pieces left over. I’m kinda famous in the family for making potholders for everybody.”

She got the idea to sell potholders at the fair after her Androscoggin Home Health nurse bought some at Christmas time. She got to work, and has made more than 400 since December.

As her baskets filled, sales commenced from her living room. Family and friends stopped by and scooped them up.

Her regular potholders sell for $2.50, thicker ones for $5.

They feature sunflowers, frogs, dogs or cats. Some are patriotic; some celebrate the holidays. Others feature moose, deer, cows. There are patterns of colors in greens, reds, purples and blues.

“They say I have an eye for color,” she said.

When she and her husband moved to Leeds, there was no community church. When a local girl died of polio, her father had to go to Lewiston to get a minister for the funeral. “He said, ‘That’s no way to bring up a family’ and formed a committee to create the church.”

Grant recalled that the Leeds sanctuary opened in an existing church building that had been closed for years.

On Wednesday, with her son as her escort, she showed off the church and the new-and-improved elevator. She was all smiles as she rode up.

The quilt fair, to be held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. today and Saturday, draws quilters and vendors from the region. It’s only held every three or four years because of the work that goes into the show, said Lois Hathaway of the Leeds Community Church Women’s Association, which sponsors the fair.

Grant said she had fun making the potholders, but she’s “kind of scared” about the fair.

“I get tired easy,” she said.

Go and do:

What: Airing of the Quilts show

When: 9-4 today and Saturday

Where: Leeds Community Church

Admission: $3

FMI: 524-5444