Quilters Stitch Communities Together
By Nancy Turner
The Dalles, Ore., April 20, 2026 — Cherry City Cut Ups is a group of about fifteen quilt makers that meets in The Dalles to share ideas and keep the ancient craft of quilt making alive.
They are mostly in their 70s and eighties, but one woman is still doing top-notch work at ninety-one. On Saturday, the Cherry City Cut Ups will be sponsoring a free quilt show.
When: Saturday, April 25th, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Where: St Peter’s Landmark Church at 405 Lincoln Street, The Dalles, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and the Herbring House Courtyard at 313 W 4th Street, The Dalles.
Cost: Free for attendees and for quilters wanting to show their work. Donations to St. Peter's are optional but appreciated.
Show your quilt? If you have a quilt you’d like to exhibit, there’s no fee to show it. Bring it to St. Peter’s on the 25th between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m.
Quilt Raffle Fundraiser: $5 a ticket. Enter to win a gorgeous quilt. The money supports St. Peter’s Landmark, where we have our show. Drawing will be at 4 p.m. on Saturday. The winner does not need to be present.
Questions? For more information, contact Corliss Marsh at 541-296-8618.
What is a quilt used for? Quilting is the craft of stitching together fragments of fabric, of time, of life, into something that holds together and lasts for generations. They aren’t just for warmth. The panels within a quilt often tell a family history or reflect memories from childhood. Black slaves were not allowed to read or write. They preserved their family history, cultural identity, and generational resilience in their quilts. During the era when slaves from the South were fleeing northward, quilts contained secret maps to safe houses or where to meet someone to guide them to freedom. They also mark important events, like births, anniversaries, marriages, and memorials. For example, the AIDs Memorial Quilt, in which each of more than 50,000 panels honors someone who died of AIDs. This huge collection of panels tells a powerful, shared story of loss and remembrance.
History: American women colonists and pioneers enjoyed gathering to work collectively on quilts, sharing ideas, fabrics, and gossip. Quilting mended more than just fabric. Quilting bees, as they were called, became less common as our country entered the industrial age and women began working outside the home. Then, in the 1960s and 70s, the hippies, with their love of handmade things, revitalized interest in quilting. Constructing quilts became quicker and easier, even for arthritic hands, with the invention of the sewing machine and cutting tools that can cut through several layers of fabric at once.
These days: Women in the gorge don’t just make quilts for family and friends. They also sew a variety of styles and designs for sale at the Mid-Columbia Senior Center, raising funds to support the senior center activities. Quilts to be gifted to cancer patients at Celilo Cancer Center must be made entirely of cotton fabric, including the thread. This prevents them from melting when they are put in a microwave to warm them up before wrapping a resting patient.
This group sews small quilts for the birthing center and larger ones to give to veterans as a gesture of appreciation for their service. When vets at the Oregon Veterans’ Home receive red, white, and blue quilts, there’s not a dry eye in the room. When a family moves into a new Habitat for Humanity home, they are gifted a quilt as a way of welcoming them to our community.
If you know someone who quilts, you know how they are about fabric. As they say, hoarding is not a problem – it’s creativity. There’s no such thing has having too much. The problem is not enough storage space. Running out of thread is like having a heart attack. Every husband of a quilter should be warned. A quilter is in a committed relationship with her sewing machine. In The Dalles, when local fabric stores recently vanished, dedicated quilters traveled to shops in Hood River, Goldendale, and shopped on-line. There’s no stopping a creative seamstress.
Come see what happens when a group of talented women take chaotic scraps of fabric, plans a pattern, and sew it together to bring order, warmth, and beauty for all of us to enjoy.
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