Monday, December 12, 2011

Barn Quilt Square

We recently had a Barn Quilt installed on our old tobacco barn. The pattern is "Flying Swallows" . I chose it because my studio is "Birdsong Studio" and the farm is "Birdsong Farm" and, ta da, because we have lots of Barn and Tree Swallows swooping all over our summer skies.
I sponge painted the blue background squares. I wanted them to reflect the blue sky and white clouds that are behind and around the barn.  It works great.
The quilt square was installed by "The Woodford County Quilt Trail".  Ours was the 4th square they have installed. They hope to put up 30 squares.
Our square is 8' by 8' so it really stands out. We have had neighbors stop and wave who have never noticed us before, strangers stop and take pictures and yesterday, a family stopped and asked my husband about out barn "sign". He gladly told them that it is a quilt square, the pattern name and everything else he could think of about the whole project.  They seemed very happy to learn about the quilt pattern and the quilt trail.

Here are some pictures of the quilt square in progress and as it looks on the barn.
 Sponging the blue background with some help from a friend.
 Installing the quilt square. It took a lot of volunteer labor and about 1 1/2 hours on a very cold day.
 It's beautiful and fun to look at.;-)


I am wondering if these quilt squares will help to ignite new interest in traditional and modern forms of quilting.  I hope so. I'd love to see some younger people getting involved in quilting again. Also, as much as I love art quilting, we really need to be sure we keep the heritage of traditional quilts alive.
Happy Quilting,

Karen

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