Welcome to Sugar Bee Quilts!  My name is Jeana and I am glad you stopped by.  My interest in quilting started when I was in high school.  My grandmother was a quilter. She frequently made lovely quilts that she machine pieced and hand quilted.  I have a few of them and they are a treasure!  I have a particular connection to the ones that I helped her hand baste when I was a teenager.  I fondly remember her calling me to come down the street to her house and spend the morning “getting a quilt ready.”  That meant we would pull out the long 1”x12’ pieces of wood and metal c-clamps.  We would unroll the quilt back, roll out the batting and unfold the top.  We would then get to work pinning two edges of the quilt sandwich to the wooden “frame” for hand basting. The long edges would be placed on the tops of the back of my great-grandmother’s dining room table chairs and we would roll and straighten, roll and straighten until we were ready to start the process of basting.  We would string the long strands of thread into needles and baste.  As we finished a section, we would unroll the quilt sandwich and baste the next section until the whole quilt was basted and ready to be hand quilted.  Nana would smile a very happy smile and talk about how ready she was to start on the quilting.

Nana showed me the basics of hand quilting and I made a couple small items when I was younger, but my love for quilting came years later when I was in school for the last time.  I took a quilt class on a whim and fell in love with fabric and all things quilting!   My early quilting days were once again spent with Nana giving me tips and tricks to make the next project better.  What a special bond that quilting became for the two of us.  I inherited most of my grandmother’s quilt supplies.  I have those wooden frames.  I look at them often and remember the hours preparing Nana’s quilts.  I also now have the same table and chairs in my home.  When I walk by the table, I often remember seeing the different quilt sandwiches resting on the frame in my mind’s eye. What a lovely memory that has stitched my heart to Nana’s.  I am so thankful that she let me help her and spent the time with me as an adult to make me a better quilter.

While Nana was an amazing hand quilter, I have never had that level of enjoyment for handwork.  I am so thankful to have the ability to quilt with my very own longarm.  So, here I am…still preparing quilts all these years later; some are mine, some are for others.  I love the color, texture and appreciate the time that each quilter puts into their own personal work. How much fun it is for me to help others finish their quilts by quilting for them.

A picture of me and my favorite quilter, Nana!