Jenny Welden

Wedding Quilt

Once an anniversary
we make chains
a continual linking
in the river of time

Changes made
on top of changes
the story pauses
and then writes itself again

Throughout the year
I carry the basket of my burdens
and empty them into emblazoned colors

black triangles
red stars
gold lightning
multicolored branches

There they rest, 
remnants of stories
too intimate
to speak

Face of Wedding Quilt, (as of 2023), 2020-ongoing, 91″ x 103″, Assorted fabrics, assorted yarns, and Isacord thread on linen chambray; exposed wool batting. Hand embroidery, machine applique, free motion embroidery, free-motion quilting.

Reverse of Wedding Quilt (as of 2023), 2020-ongoing, 91″ x 103″, Isacord thread on linen chambray; exposed wool batting. Hand embroidery, free motion embroidery, free-motion quilting.

Day 1: Wedding Day

Standing before a door that goes somewhere, a door we have chosen together. The immaculate fabric of our future is rolled out before us, untouched and tender as snow, too perfect and precious to begin– but we must. So we make our first meandering footsteps through the vast expanse of white and blue, and it will never be blank again. These stitches, like all action that came before and after, can never be undone. And I already feel myself slipping down the waterfall, the river of time, and I am powerless–except to begin–and then, to keep going.
Day 1: As I write, He writes. As He writes, I write. From left to right, back and forth again, a new star is being born through a gesture of traversing.

Day 21

Day 21: The quilt appears in a glass case.
Other pieces of memory appear alongside the quilt, including Time Capsule to Furthest Husband and First Meeting From Both Perspectives

Day 110

Day 212

On day 212 we had a gathering at Sheldon’s ancestral homestead in Enfield, CT, to celebrate our marriage. The wedding quilt had its own special tent and became a meeting ground for loved ones and guests. We invited them to each embroider a star and sign their names as contributors.
Our hands with the stars my father added to the quilt
Sheldon and I with the Wedding Quilt on day 212

Day 408

My brother took these of us in front of my apartment in Lawrence, Kansas

Day 499

Day 499: The Quilt appears for interactive performances in TerMinAL mA

Days 516-523

See some of the special people who stitched a star into the wedding quilt during TerMinAL mA.

Site icon
Wedding Quilt

Contributers from this time include: Megan Kaminski, Dora Agbas, Anne Heide, James Welch, Tristan Lindo, Tiana Honda, Sammie Hardewig, SK Reed, Lisa Hamilton, Nhan Luo, Anissa Khan, Marissa Shell… and others

Day 730

Second anniversary. Stitching the quilt in Redstone, Colorado

Day 796

Day 804

My long-lost grandmother in her kitchen in Albequerque, NM, with the wedding quilt and the wedding portrait of her maternal grandparents. (They also appeared in my film and installation, TerMinAL mA). Her sewing box is identical to my own.

Day 1096 (3rd anniversary)

Typically we travel, but since I am 41 weeks and 4 days pregnant, we are having our gift exchange in the yard. The theme this year is “leather.” I made an album for Sheldon, and he finished this leather basket I began and asked him to finish. I love it.

Day 1097

Thorton, Colorado

Sheldon works on the wedding quilt in the hotel room while I am in labor. At some point in the darkness my mom embraces me and I feel the echoes of other ancestors behind her, also embracing me.

Day 1113

Our Baby. 16 days old.

Day 1531

Fairplay, Colorado, December 2024

Day 1591

Momo loves to blow kisses. He will now say “muah” and hold his little hand against his head and lean into one of us, like a rhinoceros ramming its horn, requesting a kiss at a random moment. He says “puppy” (even when he hears a bark from far away) and “all gone” and “night night,” plus “up” and “down” and “out.” And of course his favorite: “NO!” and he will wave his hand like a rainbow and turn his head in refusal. He says “Row, row row” to prompt us to sing that nursery rhyme endlessly (although singing it in the round with another willing victim makes it more enjoyable), and his favorite to say is “doe… dee” to get us to sing “Doe, a Deer,” from the Sound of Music, which we sing countless times each day. Even grandpa Jim who is visiting from Detroit sang it for him and earned a huge beaming smile from Mo.

Day 1593

Castle Rock, Colorado, 2025

Momo is like a wild racoon in the house. He pulls ALL the books off of each shelf. ALL the recipes out from the box and onto the kitchen floor. ALL the folded laundry off my shelf. ALL the tupperware out of the drawers. He likes circular lids. Like mason jar lids, and bottle caps. He will clutch them as he wreaks havoc in the house. He is constantly getting into everything. Making messes. Being feral in general. Circling around like a crazy baby chick. We call his greenish-gold woolen suit his “Green Bean” and he can now say “geenbean” very cutely. I took him in the backpack on a 3 mile walk and he clutched his circular tupperware 95% of the way, even on a cold day, even while he slept! He likes to hold onto things.

We still haven’t finished our annual row of chain stitches for year three OR for year four. Part of me wants to find a quicker ritual. Part of me wants to sit down together and sew quietly.

I sometimes grow tired of seeing all the raw edges sticking out of the quilt. Part of me wants to bind it so it looks more finished. But then I worry it will get set aside as “done.” We haven’t given it the same attention as we were before the baby. But now there are so many more things to do. And undo. And redo. Lots of redoing. Put the books back on the shelf again. Put the cups back in the drawer again.

Day 1598

A little Instagram reel (screen-recorded and pasted here) from some quiltkeeping momo and I were doing this week with the big Februrary snows.