Making My Barn Quilt

The Barn Quilt has been around for hundreds of years. Barns were not painted back in the day but were decorated sometimes with folk art. Once paint was available and people could afford it, people would pick quilt blocks based on their meaning to paint on their barns.

History of Barn Quilt and Trail

Just about every summer there is a Barn Quilt Class offered at our County Arts Center. It is an all day class from around 8am to 5pm and you leave with what should be a completed Barn Quilt. A Barn Quilt is a large piece of wood and you paint it to look like a single quilt block. The quilt block square can be any size you want, but the traditional size for your Barn is 8 feet. You will find these quilts hanging on the exteriors of barns, houses, garages or any other building. The Class is lead by the sweetest Lady out of North Carolina who drives here to VA to share her passion of Art. Once you have paid the online class fees you receive an email with instructions on how to pick out our Barn Quilt Pattern and to decide what size board we wanted to paint on. We could choose from the following sizes:
2’X2­' or 3’X3­' or 4’X4' ­ Each of these had a Materials Fee which included the wood, brushes, paint, supplies and your design traced and ready when your class begins. You are also provided a link to a website to pick a pattern for your quilt block. http://www.quilterscache.com/QuiltBlocksGalore.html

I spent about an hour going thru all the beautiful patterns and got completely overwhelmed. I ended up with requesting a 3x3 board with the Celtic Sunrise Original from page 41. I also wanted to keep the colors as is on the picture. You can change anything you want to about the quilt pattern and you can paint the block any way you choose.

Arriving at class I found the 3x3 Board I ordered with my pattern traced on it. We began marking off the lines with Tape.

Once everything was taped off, you decide which color you want to start with. I chose the Blue.

Gonna need several coats of paint!

I ended up with 3 coats all over on mine. Several of us did not get ours outlined so we decided to buy the couple of items needed and finish later.

I ordered a black permanent paint pen from Amazon and I had a Ruler and then you just outline each color. Definitely looks better outlined.

Here is my finished product hung on our barn.

Thank you for stopping by and reading about my barn quilt!
Kimberly

All pictures are my own point and clicks :)