Barn Quilt Love

I'm not real sure when my love of barn quilts began, but I know I usually scream out 'BARN QUILT!!!' every time  I spot one on a road trip. I even see them around the suburbs here in the cities, like when I drive out to my son's place in Chaska, I spot a few here and there and I love them! And now that I know where they are, I look out for them. On our way to St. Louis last spring, our drive to market went a little quicker with the spotting of some barn quilts. So when my friend Lynn asked if I wanted to take a barn quilt class, I jumped at the opportunity to make one! The instructor offered three size boards to work on, and 8' x 8', 4' x 4' and a 2' x 2' . We opted for the 2' x 2' board. A two foot board is pretty frickin big..... I must have had a one foot board in my head because when I arrived at the class, I thought the instructor made a mistake.  No... it's a big board.... a couple of brave classmates made the four foot boards... they were just huge.  Lynn tells me that the eight foot board is actually two sheets of plywood... I can't imagine doing one that big. Someday we hope to have a big ol' shop for the hubby. I imagine making four, two foot barn quilts and then put them 'together'. I think that would be adorable. The class was four hours long... and let me tell you, you need four hours to complete a smaller barn quilt. This includes speeding the paint drying process with hair dryers. There was no time to dink around... especially if your barn quilt used several different colors.

Our instructor took time to draft out our designs that we sent her for the class onto graph paper. This I'm sure saved tons of time and gave us more time to draft our block onto our board. She also painted all of our boards with a basecoat of white beforehand.

I took a few pictures to show you the process. Using frog tape, we tape off sections to paint the different colors. This gives nice crisp lines. 

Here you can see how I taped for each color... I have the cream, white and green sections painted. I'm taping off now my red areas. 

Lynn is working away on her design... can't wait to see it complete!

My Barn Quilt

Lynn's quilt

Mom's quilt

Ann's quilt...

I love how my barn quilt turned out. It was a lot of fun to do. I plan on making a couple more for gifts this Christmas. I've got the designs all picked out... just need to make the time to do them! My quilt will eventually be mounted on our garden shed this spring. But for right now I am enjoying it in the house. They're not just for barns!

My barn quilt fits nicely on my fireplace mantle... the colors are perfect.

To find out a little about the history of barn quilts Click HERE.

The next time you are out and about, be on the lookout for barn quilts! They are making a comeback!

Hope you have a great day!

Happy quilting,

Cindy