Happy 250th Birthday, America!

Posted on September 10, 2026 by Jenny

Last year, our Quilt Guild talked about how we would like to have this year’s Peach Days show be a Patriotic theme because of America 250. I got really excited. I bought the book Traditions with a Twist, by Blanche Young and her daughter Dalene Stone. I was really excited about it because, while she has passed, I cherish a special spot in my heart for Blanche. She was in the same guild as me for many years, and her amazing daughter Lynette Bingham is the mastermind behind the Piecemakers’ Peach Days Quilt Display. I digress. I bought the book, and I determined that I would make a Double Irish Chain for the Peach Days show.

I finished the quilt in late spring.

Then, in late summer, some heck broke loose in my personal life, and a large number of stressful events in a short period of time lead to my brain function not being up to its usual par. I missed a few quilt guild meetings, and texted Lynette to get the form to submit my quilt. In reading the photo of it on my phone, my brain mixed up Tuesday and Thursday. I got my quilt all ready to submit and my form pinned in place on Thursday morning. When I arrived at work I realized, “It is Thursday. Always in the past we have turned them in on Tuesday.” I called Lynette, and sure enough, it was too late.

So this quilt, which I specifically made for the Peach Days patriotic quilt display in honor of America 250, did not get to hang with her homies in the show. I was pretty bummed out, but I posted it on social media, and I will post it here before it goes to its final home which will be a great secret for a few more months.

So without further ado, I give you “Sweet Freedom,” my celebration of our country.

I tried a new technique called graffiti quilting on the borders. I have been following Karlee Porter and buying her books to help me learn. She is awesome! Check her out.

I did three passes of the quilt so that the threads would blend with their own colors, red, blue, and gold on the white, with a few spots of gold for contrast on the blue.

The curves in the small blocks are called orange peel quilting.

A beginner attempt at graffiti quilting.

I feel like I learn new things with every quilt I make. With this one I learned, ALWAYS TURN YOUR QUILT IN ON TIME! Haha. I still enjoyed seeing all the wonderful quilts at the show immensely. There were many truly beautiful pieces there.

Zion National Park Quilt – Peach Days Peoples Choice 2024

Posted on April 19, 2025 by Jenny

This quilt took me about four years from when I started with the idea of it. I took this photo below in 2018, and I decided I wanted to quilt it.

I started looking for fabrics, and even started this quilt with a different sky fabric before I found the one I ended up with. To execute this quilt, I printed the photo in four 8×10 photos, and drew a grid of 1″ blocks on the back. I labeled them in alphabetical columns and numerical rows (A1, B1, etc.) Then I took each 1″ square and made an 8.5″ block (8″ finished) from each one.

The quilting reflects what part of nature is shown, with airwaves in the sky, rocky lines in the mountains, and swirls in the river. I used a fair amount of gold thread in sky and river, and the threads in the earth and greenery blend with those. I love Superior threads for long arm quilting, and I am sad they moved their headquarters out of my local county. Thank goodness I can still get their goodies online!

I decided to display it in Peach Days with the Zion Piecemakers Quilt Guild (my local guild) in 2024. The Guild’s Peach Days show is a peoples’ choice competition, and to my surprise, I won! I was a little humbled by that, because there were many wonderful quilts that were created with much more technical skill than this one in the show. However, Zion National Park has always been a breathtakingly beautiful place of spiritual renewal for me. I was very grateful to realize that the park that speaks to me also spoke to others.

Quilt #69

Posted on June 12, 2020 by Jenny

I finished this quilt. Did I tell you I keep a log of all the quilts I have ever made? My grandma told me to do that when I was in my early twenties, and at that point I had made few enough that I could remember them all and to whom they were given. For that reason, I know that this is the 69th quilt I have made. It is the first quilt I have tried to sell, though. I have another site called Honor Caregivers in which I share the stories of great people who take time out of their lives to care for other humans. The site that hosts it charges an annual fee to allow the site to be ad-free, so I have decided to consign this quilt in the hope that it will support my other passion project being ad free. When I told my mom about wanting to transition to ad-free, she sent me money to pay for the first year, so I’ve already had a lucky leg up there.

Hopefully this quilt will support my site next year. If not, I’ll just put it in Peach Days after Labor Day, and then give it to the next baby to show up in the family. Either way, win, win.

Happy (Belated) Graduation Baby Sister

Posted on September 17, 2019 by Jenny

Abbie Graduation Quilt-1 Many, many years ago, when I was eighteen years old, my mom was pregnant with my youngest sister. She thought it would be a great idea for me to see the baby be born, since I was likely to eventually be a mother myself. My mom had had several good experiences with epidurals, and thought that watching a calm, pain free birth might help me not be afraid when it came time to have my own kids.

When the birth night came, my mother called me to the hospital. This was her eighth child, and the doctor had given her a treatment to get her labor going. She progressed quickly, and when I got there my mom was ready for an epidural.

While they were inserting the epidural, my mom progressed extremely rapidly. After the epidural was in, my mom began screaming in pain, and then began bearing down to push the baby out. I would say this was about a half hour after I got to the hospital. My baby sister made an exciting entrance into the world before the epidural took effect.

I decided that if it hurt like that, I would NOT be having children. Six years later, I did have my own daughter. Let me tell you, it took well over an hour. Over sixteen, in fact. But I am getting away from the real point of this post, which is that another eighteen years later, my baby sister graduated from high school. So I made her a quilt. This is a rainbow zig zag, because she has a colorful personality. I put a zebra print flannel on the back, and bound it in black.

Unlike my sister when she was born, this quilt was very late. Thankfully, she graciously accepted it anyway.

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Next Project – Great Grandma’s Double Wedding Ring Quilt

Posted on September 10, 2019 by Jenny

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I don’t know the entire story of this quilt, and it fills me with questions. How old was my great grandma when she made it? How long did it take her? Where did she get all of this wild fabric? I feel like my grandma may have said the fabrics were her old shirts and dresses at one point. I called Grandma this week to ask her some details about the border, which was sewn on by machine. I thought she told me once that she sewed the border on, but I can’t remember now, and she can’t either.
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There are a few things I do know about this top.

1. It’s very colorful and mismatchy.

2. I like it a lot.

3. The pattern is called a double wedding ring.

4. Double wedding rings are very hard to sew.

5. It was pieced probably before I was born, and all by hand.

6. It sat in my Grandma’s closet for a long time.

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I think the quilt came to me with very interesting timing. It started like this. My sister in law loves quilting and family history. A few years ago, she gave me a miniature double wedding ring template for my birthday. The template is acrylic, so I could cut the pieces with my rotary cutter. I thought that to start I would try making a 3 ring oversized hot pad for my mom for Christmas.

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By the time I was done mangling my three ring hot pad into existence, I realized that I don’t have the skill level to make a full wedding ring quilt—much less a miniature one! I decided that if I tried it again, it would be with a teacher and a class.

While I was still finishing my wrinkly piece of mischief, my mom and grandma were cleaning out a closet, and found this top and gave it to me. I decided that if our ancestors are watching over us, Great Grandma was watching over me, waiting for me to try a wedding ring quilt so I would not judge her craftsmanship.

It’s not perfect, but it is whole. I am so glad it came to me. It took me two years to get up the patience to think I could hand quilt it, but I have got it basted and ready now. I took these pictures to chronicle the hand work inside, because that is one treasures of this quilt that will be hidden once it is quilted.

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