News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
For one day each summer, Sisters becomes a matron's Mecca, a quilter's Canterbury, a place of pilgrimage and wonder.
With perfect summer temperatures, blue skies and hundreds of quilts stirring in a gentle breeze, the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show Saturday, July 12, was a sight to warm the hearts of the thousands of members of the steadfast sisterhood of scrap sewers who came from all points of the compass to partake of the largest show of its kind.
One quilter came from Australia and a group of East Coast quilters disembarked at the end of an Alaska cruise with quilter Dorene Speckman and headed south for the show.
The show also provided a boost for Sisters' student organizations and activities. The show hired students to assist quilters and to stage the event.
According to quilt show organizer Jean Wells, the Sisters Outlaws Dance Team raised approximately $1,200 by assisting quilters with moving their supplies for classes, staffing water stations through town, and serving the quilters' banquet.
The Sisters Outlaws baseball team set up and took down quilts and handled the heavy lifting chores. Wells said the team raised enough to fund themselves for the season.
The High School Band operated a Bed and Breakfast at Sisters High School, catering to quilters who were in town for a week's worth of classes and demonstrations.
"The ladies that stayed at that bed and breakfast loved it," Wells said. "Half of them sewed half the night."
Justin Little managed to sell $400 worth of sno-cones to fund the middle school band.
And, as always, Sisters merchants did thriving business with the quilters -- as enthusiastic about shopping in Sisters' stores as they were about the quilts hanging on them.
But the focus was truly on the quilts themselves, representing an old folk-art tradition and ranging in style from the traditional to the abstract. Long-time quilters took home renewed inspiration, and novices and the uninitiated felt the spark of a craft that becomes a consuming passion.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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