Barn Quilt

I'm not sure how many of you know what a barn quilt is so let me explain a little.  A barn quilt is a barn or other farm building that displays a quilt square. Usually these barns are very old and have historical or landmark significance in the area, but aren’t limited to that significance.  While traveling I've seen many of these and have been facinated by them.  I wanted one for my own barn.  Here's a neat one I  found online.

Many of the quilt square patterns chosen for display on the barns reflect the owner and his way of life on his own farm.  So they are very personalized.

Quilt patterns are appearing on  barns all over the southern states.  Donna Sue Groves, purchased a barn in Adams County that had the “Chew Mail Pouch Tobacco” slogan already painted on it. She wanted to replace the slogan with a painted quilt square, to honor her mother, Nina Maxine Groves, a noted quilter who learned the craft from her mother and grandmother and the barn quilt was born.  Here are some examples on a few neat barns I found on google images.

I designed a quilt square that represented the four generations that have lived here on my little farm.  To begin, I  drew a grid on a piece of paper to draw my design on which made it easier to transfer onto a plywood square.  Since the board was 4 x 4 ft I drew the grid 4 in x 4 in and each inch represented 1 ft.  Here's a photo of it freshly painted before we put it up.

  
You can still see some of the grid pattern in pencil on it.  I used a craft acrylic paint and then applied several coats of polyurethane to protect it.  Here's my hubby climbing up the very tall ladder to put it up on the barn for me.  He’s such a trooper.  I love it. 

Now we have a neat topic of conversation when people see it. There are four of everything on the board;  4 generations on this farm, and 4 of us.  The stripes are for our gardening rows, the corners are chickens, black wings, yellow bodies and there are 4 crosses in the middle representing our Christian faith.

.  Oh yes, can you spot the 4 J’s for our last name?

This was a fun project and one I have been wanting to do for a long time.  Glad I finally got around to it.

Try one for yourself.  You can even have a small square on a little tool shed in your yard.

I'm Linking to: