Quilt Barns

I'm beginning to feel I've been living under a rock. This year I've run across several things I've never heard of before, like the Peace Pole Project, the Old Frankfort Pike, now Quilt Barns.

As we left Midway and traveled east through Kentucky and Tennessee and even into Virginia we kept seeing these quilt square on barns.

Now I've seen hex signs of the  Pennsylvania Dutch forever, but never these quilt squares. It turns out this is a project that was started in Ohio by Donna Sue Groves to honor her mother in 2001. Since then quilt barns can be found in 40 states. Follow this link for the story how this all got started.

The quilts are usually painted on 8' square pieces of plywood that are mounted on barns. The quilt projects are often headed up by the local arts councils and there are maps and trails for each state so you can find them all.

Western North Carolina has a large collections of them it turns out - where have I been, this from someone that pays attention to such things! Here is a link to a site that talks about them http://www.quilttrailswnc.org/

Here are a few quilt barn photos.

For more info go to http://www.barnquilts.com/default.htm

Another interesting thing to look for as you travel!