The Quilts in the Garden Home and Garden Tour organized and conducted by the Sisters Garden Club has been a highlight of Quilt Show Week for the past 20-plus years — that is, until the COVID-19 pandemic required cancellation of the tour in 2020 and 2021.

The tour has offered a diversion from the week of quilt classes and an opportunity for all to experience the homes and gardens in the Sisters area. With no garden tour for two years, and the waiving of annual membership dues because of COVID, the club’s ability to provide funding in support of needs in the community received a devastating blow.

Not a group to be deterred for long, the group put together months of research, design work, and planning, and unveiled a 504-piece puzzle at the club’s first in-person meeting in over 14 months, held on June 12.

The membership had the first opportunity to purchase the first-edition “Quilts in the Garden” puzzle.

The puzzle is a reproduction of the tour raffle quilt created in 2019 by Sisters fiber artist Leotie Richards and displayed at the Black Diamond Ranch home of Pattie Apregan during that year’s tour. In a happy coincidence, Apregan was the lucky ticket holder who won the quilt.

The quilt shows brightly colored flowers in a happy yellow meadow providing perches for birds basking under the rays of a golden sun in a bright blue sky, with puffy white clouds floating overhead.

Club member Karen Thrower designed the puzzle after member Pat Drake came up with the idea of making and selling the puzzle as a way of raising money to continue the club’s philanthropic work in Sisters and Central Oregon.

Up until now, the tour has been the club’s only fundraiser, with the money raised going to support fulfilling grant requests from local nonprofits and schools that are focused on gardening and the natural world. The club has supported the Sisters Elementary School Garden Club and greenhouse, Sisters middle and high school greenhouses and garden programs, Sisters Community Garden, Sisters Library landscaping, City parks, Deschutes Land Trust, Camp Caldera, Sisters Rotary Club, Upper Deschutes Watershed Council, Barclay Memorial Park, Central Oregon Veterans Ranch, and Seed to Table.

Select locations throughout Sisters will have the 16-by-20-inch puzzle for sale for $20. Watch for details in the Announcements section of The Nugget in July or on the club website at www.sistersgardenclub.com.