Perkiomen Valley Quilt Lady

She's a quilt maker, a community and school volunteer, a mom, a hair salon owner, a gardener and a storyteller.

One thing Judy Muche doesn't do is sit still.

"I love projects," Judy says. "I always have several projects going on at once.

Judy has been helping the Perkiomen Valley elementary schools with the "Fifth Grade Quilt" project for 13 years. Each elementary school chooses a theme. Every fifth-grade student gets his or her own square to design, and then the squares are sewn together. Completed projects are displayed in each elementary building. For a look at past quilts, check out The Fifth Grade Quilts.

A PV grad herself, Judy has shared her talent with her alma mater by creating school quilts. When her son moved from PV North Elementary to the newly opened Evergreen Elementary, Judy thought the school needed a quilt. She took the tree design the school planned to use and made an evergreen quilt using fabric with tiny evergreens. When Skippack Elementary was built, Judy made a quilt based on the original name of the area, Harmony Square. Each unique square contains the four elements of air, fire, water and earth in a variety of colors, shapes and sizes.

In 2003, Judy read the book Lest I Be Forgotten by Nancy and Donald Rowan and learned about the Perkiomen Valley Quilt.

"I knew this would be the perfect quilt for the high school," said Judy. "It took me over 350 hours to design and construct it."

The quilt, in PV orange and brown, respects the pattern of the Perkiomen Valley Quilt, while incorporating the school mascot, the Viking. Those who look carefully at the quilt hanging in the high school will notice little Viking helmets all around the border, with the PV class letters in each of the four corners.

Several of Judy's quilts are displayed at Schwenksville Elementary and when PV Middle School West was being built, Judy was asked to create a quilt for each middle school.

"I had a hard time coming up with a design for those two middle school quilts," Judy said. I wanted to bring the schools together."

She came up with a sunrise and sunset theme. East's quilt depicts the sun rising and West's shows the sun setting. A closer look shows Viking ships around the border of PV East's quilt and little horseshoes around West's quilt. This year, the PV West yearbook featured Judy's quilts.

"I don't stress over my quilts," Judy said. "I contemplate. There's so much math in quilting. I play around with the design in my mind and then I re-arrange it in my head over and over."

Judy's newly launched website, The Quilt Cabinet, contains pictures of her quilts, like "No Calorie Candy With all the Comfort" (in chocolate, vanilla or strawberry, of course), "The Fruit Basket", "The Flower Garden" and "The Wine Cellar".  She also creates custom t-shirt and photo quilts.

For more information on her quilts, Judy can be reached through her website.

The next time you visit any of the PV school buildings take a look - a close look - at the quilts hanging on the walls.

The story is in the details.