Garden Gallery Quilt is Stunning!

Quilter’s Name: Jeannie Sanchez from Boonville, Missouri

Title of Quilt: My Garden Gallery

Name of Pattern: Designer’s Workshop, Eileen Sullivan

Featured Date: 04-06-23

Hi, I’m Jeannie Sanchez. I started this project in 1990 when I took a class on paper piecing. I started with the Iris.  I absolutely HATED the process, but LOVED the result!  At the same time, I purchased two additional kits…red tulips & ??.  I finished the Iris, and put the rest away.

Fast forward 25 years, we had moved to a different state. When I set up my new sewing studio, that darn tulip kit followed me and kept haunting me!  I either had to figure out an easier way to do paper piecing or give it away!

The problem for me was that my Daddy was a florist, and he only liked realistic depictions of flowers… and these were!  I knew he would have loved these!  I couldn’t quit!

SO… I took another class, in my new state, and began a new way to approach paper piecing.  However, it was done with a geometric design and was very simple.  These floral designs were much more involved with some tiny little pieces!  Why not give it a try?  So I did!

Since I am not a wall hanging kind of person, and the patterns are for wall hangings, (almost all are from Designers Workshop, Eileen Sullivan ), they languished together in a drawer for several months-years. (I also has a friend who brought me even more of her patterns from the Texas Quilt Show, so I HAD to make them too!)

In the meantime, I had really gotten this “paper-piecing-my-way” thing down to a fine art, and even taught some classes locally.

So, what the heck do you so with a drawer full of pieces you love but will NEVER make into wall hangings?  Make them into a bed-sized quilt!

My friend, Bettina Havig, said this was do-able, and she laid it out for me. (I had tried several times with no success, but she just did it with ease!)

“My Garden Gallery” is my favorite quilt!  It is on my bed today!

 I finished it in 2020… good grief!

Thanks!

Jeannie

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