Every year a bit more of the Flora School is pieced back together, much as a quilter pieces fabric together for a quilt. With each School Days celebration– this year Saturday, June 19 10am to 4pm– more pieces are added to help hold the fabric of history together. School Days brings together all this in the celebration of pioneer skills and the restoration of the Flora School.
School Days 2010 will honor quilters and sewers of all “makes and models,” including people sewing with treadle machines. For several years quilters have helped with the restoration of the school by literally piecing together schoolhouse block quilts to raffle off, eight in all. Then the money was used to help with The Three R’s: Restoration, Repairs and Renovations being done at the school. With the honoring of quilters, comes a new tee shirt for the festivities and a slightly different raffle quilt. The tee shirts will be a limited quantity on hand and more will be purchased when orders are placed. The quilt, started with silhouette blocks, will be sewed by many hands embellishing the blocks as they see fit. Six quilters will be on-hand to work on various projects, including the new quilt. Two will be working on treadle sewing machines. Sharon Ledbetter, teaching paper piecing (June 26) and a two-day quilt workshop (July 31 and August 1) will be on hand, along with Sandy Berg from Raspberry Bramble Designs demonstrating her machine quilting class (September 18).
As always, School Days involves as many pioneer skills as can be gleaned from volunteers. New additions this year are silhouettes with the children and rug hooking. New volunteer Teresa Henke from Lostine and old time volunteer Cheryl Brunton from Pendleton will be bringing back these old time skills.
Besides the folk artist demonstrations, the Pie Social, a fund raising tradition from days of old, and the Dutch oven lunch will be available once again. These are both very popular with attendees, even to the point of the old saying, “eat dessert first, life is short.” The Country Store, filled with hand made items, some recycled items (bags of fabric scraps and antiques are possibilities), along with bakery goods, a new addition this year.
For more information on School Days or to volunteer, call 541.828.7010 or email floraschool@tds.net. The Flora School Education Center is a 501c3 nonprofit organization; therefore all donations are tax deductible to the full extent of IRS law. All money earned from the food sales and country store and all donations go towards the restoration of the Flora School and keeping pioneer skills alive.
