The 2019 Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show

It's quilt show weekend and I'm happily exhausted after three whole days of visiting quilt shops and walking the streets of Sisters and thrifting and planning future projects.

We were out the door and ready to look at quilts at 7:30 am.  The show doesn't officially start until nine, but there were already lots of quilts up and getting our start before many other people are on the streets and the day starts to get warm means we get to see more quilts.

This is the first one I saw and I was immediately in love.

It's called Foolish Mortals and the quilter, Val Livingston, says on Instagram that the pattern will be available later this month in her etsy shop.

Just around the corner was another of her quilts. The pattern for Jellies is already available.


Three versions of Gypsy Wife hanging in a row, and I know I saw others while we were wandering.

I took a picture of this one so that I could look up the designer, but managed to crop off her name. If anyone knows who it is, please leave me a comment. I'd love to see if she's got other quilts posted online.

Look at that dragon and those frogs. I swear I saw reversible sequins in all of that shiny fabric and my pictures don't even begin to capture the orange of the flames.

This narrow alley was, as far as I can tell, applique with amazing quilted texture.

And I can't tell you how much I love this rooster. One of our chickens always has that same dazed look on her face. I found the quilter, Soopermommy, on Instagram.

This scene is applique. Three of us balanced on uneven rocks for a closer look and that water is layers of fabric. Those little windows are fabric. And the sky has appliqued squares that make it look pieced.

Someone made Legendary with a fuzzy Sasquatch....

My feet are tired and my head is spinning with ideas and possibilities and now I'm going to start checking posts by my bloggy friends to see what they all saw that I missed.

The Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show

I didn't think I was going to the quilt show this year. We just got back from Colorado and we've got another big trip coming up soon and packing up the kids and driving across the mountain just seemed like too much work. Then it turned out that my husband was off for the weekend and wanted to make a trip to Sisters in a couple of weeks....so we put our heads together and decided it was best to kill two birds with one stone and make the trip this weekend. 

All week, they were talking about the sixty percent chance of rain. I'd heard the news and was trying hard to ignore it, but every time we turned on the television we heard more about how it was going to rain. Late Friday night, it absolutely poured.

But it does not rain on the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show, or so we've always heard. (Except that one year, but it didn't start until it was almost time for the quilts to come down anyway.)  We hit the streets at 7:30 am, just as the quilts were going up, and the weather couldn't have been more perfect. No rain. No triple digits. The boys didn't get to go swimming, but we've got a perfectly good river just down the highway from home. They've got months of swimming ahead of them. 

The quilts this year were gorgeous! I'm still swooning over the "door" inspired art quilts.

And Julia Child. As fantastic as the woman and the fish in her arms is, just look at that kitchen behind her!

The one in the lower right hand corner makes me think of the Eye of Sauron.

And the volcano quilt. That one was made by a ten-year-old boy. The quilts made by children were just as stunning as the ones made by adults.

For those of you in my neck of the woods, did you make it to the quilt show this year? If you did, what made you swoon?

A Day at the Quilt Show

Mom and I spent Thursday at the quilt show in Rickreall. Except for Sisters, I haven't been to a quilt show in years. The last time I made it to this one was in 2009 -- and when I wrote about it, I said that my quilt show days were probably numbered. 

This year, I left the kids at home -- one of the perks of having a responsible older teenager. While she's still living at home, I'm going to enjoy the stolen moments of freedom.

The quilts were gorgeous. I've got a stronger urge than ever to make Calendula Patterdrip's Cottage, but I really can't justify starting another witch quilt, or Crabapple Hill quilt, until I at least finish stitching the blocks for Hocuspocusville. 

And I came home with some fabric. This panel is from the Princess on a Pea Around the World collection by Denyse Klette and I just can't get over the colors. 

Look at the lanterns!

And the mason jar full of fireflies....

I'm not sure how I'm going to turn this one into a quilt. This panel, which has six old sewing machines all surrounded by wonderful notions and sewing goodies knows exactly what it wants to be when it gets sewn together.

Weekly Stash Report 

Fabric Used this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 2 1/2 yards
Added this Week: 5 yards
Added Year to Date: 41 yards
Net Added for 2015: 38 1/2 yards

Yarn Used this Week: 400 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 2800 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 2065 yards
Net Used for 2015:  735 yards

This post is linked to Patchwork Times.

I went to a quilt show!

I can't remember the last time I went to a quilt show. So I cheated and searched my own blog -- looks like it was the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show in 2010. And I didn't realize that there was one close to home this weekend, but a friend who's been overseas for the past few months invited the kids and I to a parade. We missed the parade because I got a late start and the highway was closed off, but we did see some neat old quilts.





I've never seen Drunkard's Path blocks set this way before. Both quilts had the same name -- Road to Someplace or other, or something like that. I thought I could remember it until we got home, but apparently not. Anyone know what it's called?



This one is Lady of the Lake, which is definitely on my quilty to-do list. I don't think I've seen an antique one before.



And this one is so pretty that it may have completely changed my plans to make a pineapple quilt. Or it might mean I need to make more than one.

Weekly Stash Report

Fabric Used this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 30.75 yards
Added this Week: 7 yards
Added Year to Date: 108.25 yards
Net Added for 2012: 77.25 yards

I bought a set of white percale sheets from an estate sale to use for a Double Wedding Ring quilt, and some scraps from the convenience store. Now they have YARN. I didn't look too closely, but the prices were great. I might need to go back.
To see more weekly stash reports, click over to Patchwork Times.

fabulous accomodations

Bonnie posted a gorgeous picture of where she was staying in Sisters. So did Lori and Spicewood Quilting Diva, and I'm sure there must be lots of others. With every hotel room and campsite in that part of the state booked months and months in advance, there just have to be!

So I decided to share a picture of my own fabulous accommodations from Friday night, carefully staged not to include the two inflatable mattresses and four sleeping bags my children were using.



I called dibs on that concrete floor last year right after my parents told us they'd bought property in La Pine. (The cot was an unexpected bonus and meant I didn't have to share an inflatable mattress with my two preschoolers.) Dad offered to take all three of the boys with him for the day.

Which made it my first quilt show without the kids, about a decade before I expected it to happen. I was not staying home.

The quilt show was a totally different experience from my rented wheelchair. (It probably also helped that I wasn't chasing three little boys in three different directions.)



I couldn't read the tags without getting up and walking over to them, so I missed out on the "read the tags on every quilt that caught my fancy" chunk of the kidless quilt show fantasy. To my surprise, I was able to see the quilting on most of the quilts.

This is the one that's haunting me today --



I want it! Or my own version of it, which would be more of a throw size, with 1" finished squares and slightly different log cabins... I'd be cutting pieces today if it wasn't so hot and if I was able to quilt.

What's this one? I thought it was fifty-four forty or fight, but I looked up that block when we got home and this is something else.Whatever it was, there were a bunch of them this year.



I'm glad I went and I'm brimming with ideas, but today I'm exhausted.