Crazy about Barn Quilts

I’ve heard of Barn Quilts, I’ve seen some in the past, but now I have a whole new understanding and appreciation of them.  This is a story of how an At Home! magazine DIY sparked a weekend road trip!

If you follow me on Instagram, then a while back you may have noticed that I was painting a barn quilt.  But there’s more to it then just deciding one day to paint a barn quilt.  Let me start at the beginning…

Rachael MacLean, who is a co-writer for the magazine, sent the editor and I a FB message, with a picture of a barn quilt and suggested that might be a good DIY for the fall issue.  Now, if you know me, I love a good DIY, especially one that is as country as a barn quilt.  I was all over the idea, as was Crystal, our editor.  She asked me to do a little research about the history of barn quilts and away I went.  I scrolled through Pinterest, trying to find a barn quilt pattern that really spoke to me.  I did some digging around into the history of Barn Quilts, too, which is really quite interesting.  I won’t get into that here, but I’ll be sure to share the link on the DIY column when it comes out for those who don’t get a copy { You should subscribe HERE, though! }

Now, as I mentioned, I had heard of barn quilts before and in fact part of the reason I had heard about them was because I had somehow came across a FB page of the Stewiacke Valley Barn Quilt Trail.  I had looked through the page and followed them so every now and again, something would pop up in my news feed.  Working on the barn quilt for the magazine put this local trail back on my radar.

I wanted to go on this trail and I asked Mom and Dad if they would be game to go as well.  And of course they were.  It was my girls who moaned and groaned at the thought of having to go on a long car ride and yet they hopped out at most every stop and a little bribery of treats helped their cheer.

When you download the Google Map document from their FB page, it gives you the civic address of each location, as well as a little photo of each quilt block, which is very helpful if you are the navigator and not paying attention! Not that we had to turn around at all and loop back to find ones said navigator missed….once or twice of maybe even three times?!?!

I’m not going to show you all the quilt blocks, I’ll just highlight a few of our favourite, you need to go find them all for yourself!  It was a gorgeous day, so when we pulled over or into a driveway, a few times there were people out and about in their yard and we would also chat with them and ask about the quilt block and talk about the weather or what have you.  And for me, that was part of the highlight.

This was our last quilt on the tour.  What made it extra special was a) it’s tulips, a true nod to the fact Mom and Dad are Dutch b) the gentleman was in the yard and we chatted with him, only to find out both he and his wife are of Dutch background, too.  This was the perfect way to wrap up our tour of the barn quilts!

We had a great afternoon out on tour.  If you are in Nova Scotia, I highly recommend you check this out!  I’d also love to hear if you know where there are more barn quilts or send me some pictures!  Like I said, I’m a little barn quilt crazy right now…

To be continued,

Lori