This year marked the 44th
Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show,
now the world’s largest outdoor
quilt show venue. Set against
the spectacular backdrop of the
Cascades mountain range in central
Oregon, the 2019 show featured
about 1,300 quilts and was attended
by approximately 12,000 people.
The exact attendance is unknown,
notes Jean, because you don’t have
to purchase a ticket to attend. The
whole community gets into the act
and the show has a huge economic
impact on Sisters—a $3.2 million
impact per year, according to
Oregon Business News.
When Jean moved to Sisters
with her husband in the mid-1970s,
it was a small town of about 500
people. She’d made her fi rst wall
hanging in 1969, a small piece for
her son’s nursery. She’d taken a class
with Jean Ray Laury (one of the fi rst
fi ne artists to create art quilts in the
1950s), and discovered how much
she loved quilting. So in this small
town, the former home economics
teacher with a master’s degree in
guidance and counseling saw thepotential to start a new business—
one focused on fabric, quilts, and
classes. She rented a 500-square-
foot space in an old hotel with an
annex on one side right on the main
street. She painted a patchwork
mural on one side of the building,
and then started selling fabric
and teaching classes. When her
92-year-old paternal grandmother
came to see the shop, she told Jean
that she’d had a pharmacy in the
very same location in the ’30s, a
coincidence that delighted the new
entrepreneur.“SOLVE Works” • 42" x 40"PhotobyGaryAlvis