The town I’ve been taking classes in this week is Sisters, Oregon. It’s named after three mountains that can be seen from town, known as the 3 sisters. They’re apparently pretty tall, as they all have snow on their peaks yet.
Today, I followed the advice of a quilter I met in my Montana class: I got up very early and headed to Sisters well before the official 9 a.m. start time. In fact, I was in Sisters at 7:15. I found parking easily, but imagine my surprise when the entire highway was rerouted around the center of town. Apparently this quilt show is a VERY big deal.
One of the interesting things about this show is that they display the quilts outside. Every business in town puts up quilts on their porches, balconies, rooflines, etc. here’s a few shots of the early morning:
I decided (along with apparently everyone else in town) to grab breakfast at The Gallery. While I was there, I met a friendly woman who shard what she knew about the a lot show. The town relies heavily on this one day event; she said they were expecting 30,000 people. 30,000! I think ,ost of the arrived while I was having breakfast. 😉
So it was time to see the show. Pictures tell the story so much better than I can:
There were so many styles, colors, sizes…here’s a few of my favorites:
That last one cracks me up!
The last stop I made was at the Teacher’s Tent. The instructors from the week out their work on display.
This is a variation on the Honey Quilt done by the instructor, Elizabeth Hartman
These are by Rob Appell
This one’s by June Jaeger, the instructor for the pet quilt:
Other instructors made these:
By 11:00, I felt like everything I looked at was made out of patchwork. There were hundreds of quilts, and they were all wonderful. It was starting to get really busy:
I headed out of town, appreciating my good fortune that Bernadette had advised me to go early. Traffic was backed up for miles.
The rest of the afternoon was spent in the pool, soaking up my last bits of Oregonian sunshine. Tomorrow I leave Bend to head for Boise. Time to work my way back toward Montana!
Packing again under western skies,
B.
