Studio Saturday Portrait
It all starts in Sweden. Jenny Haynes, born Nilsson, grew up with a needle and fabric even before she knew it would become her profession. In Stockholm, she studied pattern construction and tailoring — the artisanal foundation that is still visible in every stitch she makes today. But curiosity pulled her further. Her passion for fabric took her to London, where she delved into fashion and textiles at the London College of Fashion, and it is there, in the meeting between Swedish precision and British experimentation, that her signature was born.
Today, Jenny runs her own brand, Paper, Scissors, Stone, from Sheffield in northern England. The name is a playful nod to childhood games — and a reminder that creativity is always about simple tools coming together in new ways. Her quilts are easy to recognize: soft, sweeping curves in solid colors, a composition that holds together clean, mid-century-inspired lines with a bold color palette. She’s not afraid of a color clash, and likes to mix rich tones with pastels — always with the Scandinavian sense of form as the common thread.
Swedish heritage has been showcased on truly grand stages. In the summer of 2015, Jenny was invited by the Swedish Chamber of Commerce to participate in Heal's Swedish Summer Exhibition together with eighteen other Swedish designers. In 2017, she contributed to a book from Thames & Hudson in collaboration with the V&A Museum, where two of her quilts are highlighted as examples of cutting-edge craftsmanship.
The quilts that put her on the map
It was around 2018–2019 that Jenny's name seriously began to spread in the quilting world. Paper Round Quilt above was featured in Curated Quilts Magazine and their 2019 wall calendar — an early preview of her playful, graphic curvilinear language. That same year, she took home third place in the Modern Traditionalism category at QuiltCon in Nashville with Modern Times Quilt, and another third place in American Patchwork & Quilting's two-color challenge with Reel to Reel Quilt. These were quilts that showed exactly what made her unique: straight, mid-century-inspired surfaces suddenly broken by a soft, confident curve.
Later, the design language has grown further, becoming more complex and more experimental. Stern Swivel Quilt — with its Swedish name as a little greeting home — is based on circles and wedges that are multiplied and mirrored into a kaleidoscope of color, with a hidden ”surprise design” in the cut-out pieces. She has since built on this block technique in Full Tilt Quilt, which she teaches at retreats around Europe. Going from Modern Times to Full Tilt is to see an artist who never stops challenging his own curve.
A course weekend in Stockholm
I got to experience Jenny's teaching firsthand. In the fall of 2024, I took a course for her at Bussler in Stockholm, together with a wonderful group of women — great atmosphere, lots of laughter and some were "squeaked" when the curves didn't fit on the first try. What I remember best is her ironing technique: how a single iron, at the right angle and at the right moment, can make the difference between a curve that wrinkles and one that lies perfectly flat. I went home with several of her own rulers in my bag — and a whole new sense of how fun and neat it actually is to sew curves when the technique is right.
My own photo of my own favorite machine from the course day at Bussler, Stockholm, autumn 2024
But Jenny doesn’t stop at creating herself. She regularly teaches at the V&A and gives lectures and workshops for textile societies and guilds in the UK and abroad — she has led courses in her signature curves on location in France. For her, knowledge is something that should be passed on, not left in one’s own studio.
That's exactly the feeling we want to capture in Studio Saturday: that the joy of creation becomes stronger when it's shared. Jenny Haynes took her Swedish roots with her into the world and let them encounter new techniques, new colors, new contexts — and came home with something completely her own. A nice reminder that flow rarely goes in a straight line, and that it's often precisely where it collides that the most beautiful patterns emerge.
Next Saturday: Birgitta Jadenfelt, the woman behind Sybiggan, who creates her own blocks for playful quilts from her home in Kvänum.
A forward push from me, Maria