Quilt Trails

I had never heard of quilt trails before, but Tillamook County is a good place to learn about them.  Somehow in a conversation at the Cheese Factory, Kathy mentioned them, commenting that she thought she had seen some quilt blocks on buildings.

Sho 'nuf she did.  I wanted to know more about them, so who to go to but Dr. Google?  I found a website about national quilt trails and discovered that Tillamook County is one of only two counties in Oregon to have a quilt trail, but theirs has over 30 participants.

The way it works is that a business or individual requests to have a quilt block affixed to their building.  They decide what pattern or block they want to have on their property, and at least in this county, a group fashions a 4x4 or 8x8 block of wood to look like the pattern.  These are then mounted for all to see.

I had only seen one or two that afternoon, but when Kenneth, Melinda, Don and I left the cheese factory and arrived at their B & B, imagine my surprise when we were greeted with this quilt block.  The owner had joined the quilt trail in 2013.

After we ate, Kenneth took us to a dessert place in Oceanside, about 10 very winding miles up the coast.  Guess what was on the post office next door to the restaurant? Yep .  This quilt block.

After that, I really started looking for them, and even on the way out of town on Friday, I spied two more.  I certainly did not see 30, but I probably saw ten.

Another interesting site in Tillamook is their Air Museum.  The building is a former hangar for blimps.  Yes, blimps.  During World War II, blimps were used for surveillance over the ocean, mostly looking for u-boats.  They were housed in the storage hangars in Tillamook.  This particular hangar is the largest wooden free-span structure in the US . . . and maybe the world.  We wished we could have gone to the museum, but we ran out of time.  Next trip!