SEQUIM — After two years without their annual show due to the pandemic, Sunbonnet Sue quilters sought a safe way to bring it back.
This year, the show has shifted outside and to one day, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday at Pioneer Memorial Park, 387 E. Washington St.
A suggested $5 donation helps the club with rentals of the clubhouse and needed equipment.
“We wanted to have a show but wanted to do it in a way that was safe,” co-organizer Kate Laskowski said. “A lot of places do outside shows.”
She estimated about 150 quilts from club members and featured quilter Bonnie Cauffman will be placed on wires between trees and on scaffolding. Peninsula Art Quilters will also have a display.
Awards will be based on viewers with ballots available at three stations, Laskowski said.
The club’s Country Store will be inside the clubhouse with masks recommended. Parking is limited with some on site and across the street with a shuttle running throughout the City of Sequim during Sequim Lavender Weekend.
“We’re just excited for people to come out and see,” Laskowski said. “The club has been busy for the past two years.”
The club’s “Down on the Farm” raffle quilt still has tickets available for $1 each to benefit the club’s charitable work and educational opportunities. It will be raffled off in December. Bonnie Filgo pieced it together, Dory Miller quilted it and Cauffman finished it.
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Previous featured quilters voted for Cauffman because of her commitment to club activities and committees and the quality of work, they said.
“I’m certainly honored my peers voted for me,” she said. “I feel very fortunate in that way.”
Cauffman joined the club in 2018 after she retired from Peninsula College as director of human resources after 38 years.
“I’ve always sewn clothing and household things,” she said. “I was introduced to newer techniques and tools to make things more efficient, and I caught the bug.”
Cauffman said she plans to display a career retrospective of her quilts at Saturday’s show.
This past December, she was also named Club Member of the Year, partly for her efforts helping lead Community Quilts, a group that made 400-plus quilts last year for various agencies to support people in times of crisis and change.
Cauffman said she gets the “feel good” from helping with Community Quilts, and she has discovered many friendships and classes through the club.
“The morale and physical support (has done a lot for me),” she said. “It’s just a great group of people.”
Sunbonnet Sue Quilt Club members meet weekly from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesdays at the Sequim Masonic Temple, 700 S. Fifth Ave. Business meetings are held the second Wednesday of each month at 10:30 a.m. Meetings feature classes, presentations, sharing and more.
For more information, visit Sunbonnetsuequiltclub.org.
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Matthew Nash is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. Reach him at mnash@sequimgazette.com.