Seeking blue . . .

I could fall into your blue squares,

pieced together stitch by stitch. 

The tea pots promise reflection, 

the curling leaves thread across the quilt's 

perfectly shaded, soft yellow squares;

these background colors fade,

and I don't quite recognize 

the precision of each square, 

I'm lost in blue, 

the choices we make.   

A quilter knows her design,

what fabrics to choose,

when to sew, and

 when to rip away

to create that 

balance between 

being

and becoming.

This poem comes sideways and a day late from a trip to Sisters, Oregon, for their annual quilt show, several years ago. Quilts are hung everywhere throughout this small town, in every store and restaurant, gallery and fabric shop. We wandered through crowds of really thousands of people, but it's still a quilter's dream for a perfect summer day.

I dream of making this hand-appliqué quilt one day, the pattern is by Maggie Walker Design and called "The Blue Collection."

 

Last weekend we trekked south to Redmond, Oregon, to visit Jamie and Henry. What a visit! We rode a summer ski lift (with legs dangling over the side), up to nearly the top of Mt. Batchelor (some 8,000 feet high) with amazing views of snow-covered mountains.

A thunderstorm chased us down, and then Henry drove us on a loop route around part of the Cascade Lakes Recreation Area for different views of the mountains -- the Three Sisters, Broken Top, and Mt. Washington in the distance. We stopped for lunch in a funky lakeside cafe at Todd Lake, smelled the sweet smell of flowering manzanita along the way, and came home to a fish fry, fresh caught trout (what Henry calls fish bait). And that was Day One.

Saturday began at Sisters, at the 35th Annual Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show, featuring this year the works of Jean Wells Keenan, who began it all at her quilt shop, The Stitchin' Post. Now at the High Desert Gallery, her mantra still rings: "Nature always wears the colors of the spirit." Her artistry is inspirational as seen here in her quilt, "Inspired Journey".


Along with 20,000 other avid lovers of quilts, we viewed not nearly all of 1,300 quilts.


For more pictures, go to my Webshot photos for the Sisters Quilt Show or here to see the Sisters Raffle Quilt ("Timeless" designed by June Jaeger). The next five quilts I hope to make are waiting.