Nana Sue's Garden, Spray Beach, NJ
29"h x 39"w, © June, 1999
Collection of Stan & Sue Vehslage
For commissioned quilts contact clvquilts@yahoo.com.

Although I've always considered myself 'artistic,' it wasn't until I found quilting that I felt, "This is MY medium." Quilting is still very new to me. I've only been at it since June of 1998.

When people ask how I started designing quilted wall hangings, I tell them, "It's all my mother-in-law's fault!" After Peter's parents built their retirement home on Long Beach Island in New Jersey, she created an oasis. The backyard is like an English country garden. Each time we visit during the summer, there are different flowers at different heights in different colors.

Nana Sue's Garden was featured in the premier issue of
"Quilts are Forever" magazine by Primedia Publications!

Heaven! I found heaven surrounded by material, putting together the puzzle from within my mind's-eye. Soon on the canvas of my dining room table was the basic arrangement of the garden-a holly tree on the left, a peach tree on the right, pebbles on the ground, a fence in the back, and lots of 'critters' flitting about. By fall I had begun to quilt, or at least my primitive version of quilting. Oh, it was really bad. Two inch batting for a wall hanging, wild stitches that jumped from here to there then back again.

With Dee's patient instructions and Kay's encouragement, I learned the correct way to hand quilt. A year and a half from the start date, it was finished. Thank goodness the rest have been quicker.

Nana Sue's Garden took a year start to finish. Friends and family often asked, "Where is your mother-in-law going to hang it?" and I'd answer, "In my living room." Six months later after designing and completing four more quilted wall hangings, I was willing to part with it.

When Sue opened the box that Christmas, she had tears in her eyes. Always handcrafting gifts for others, she knows the amount of work required to create an item. Sue's love for her garden takes a minimum of two hours of tending every day, nine months every year. Also a quilter, Sue's been making a cathedral window quilt for several years now. The windowpane material is from fabric of the clothes she made her daughters in the 60's.

My father-in-law Stan begrudgingly lets me borrow the quilt for shows and I always try to return it with something extra. It came back with a pretty blue ribbon from Barnegat's Quilts along the Bay. Recently we inherited Sue's mother's bureau. While cleaning out a drawer, I came across some of Granny's gold charms. One was a tiny bird that is now flying the sky and the heart is the center of a flower in Nana Sue's Garden.

Secretly, I've contacted Sue's sister Jane, daughters Marla and Jen, and grandchildren Lauren and Danny for their additions to the quilt. Peter's contribution was making the hanging rod out of a plank that was salvaged from his parents' 110 year-old cottage that was originally on the site of their retirement home.

All these keepsakes add to the Vehslage family story told by Nana Sue's Garden.