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Sunday, January 8, 2012

Christmas is over

It is now January 8th, 2012.  Last year at this time we had fridged weather, snow was on the ground.......LOT'S OF SNOW!!!.....with more to come!!!  This year it is completely different.  So far the temperature has not fallen below freezing for any length of time.  I was out in the yard yesterday, in shirt sleeves, with the temperature hitting a balmy 61 degrees!!  It was a great time to put away the outdoor Christmas decorations, take down the Christmas tree's in our living room and sun room and finally take down my barn quilt, Christmas Star, that has been hanging on the front of my house since Christmas 2010!!!!!!!!


I suppose that you could call it laziness on my part that it stayed up all year, but the truth is this is one of my favorite patterns.  So, as a result, it remained on the house.  My wife mentioned about a week ago that it should come down and replace it with her favorite pattern, the Lamoyne Star.


This is the first barn quilt that I painted and it was hanging on the front of our house until I replaced it with the Christmas Star.  Usually, this star pattern is not hung on point as this one is.  My wife liked it this way, so that is why it is hung on point.  In May 2010 my wife saw a picture of a barn quilt in a quilting magazine and asked me if I would consider make a smaller one, 2' x 2', for our house.  I told her that I would give it a try, but I wouldn't promise anything.  After a few trial and errors this picture is the result.  My lines weren't very good and each paint color was seeping into the other colors, as I hadn't perfected my taping abilities.  There was a lot of touching up done to get the colors segregated and the lines as straight as they could be.  When I was done, I showed it to my wife thinking that I was done and I could hang it on the house.  But, my lovely wife said that it would be really cool if I could paint stitch lines, to give it a look of a real quilt!  Are you kidding?!  Stitch lines?!?!  Being the good husband that I am I made the attempt to paint stitch lines!  Although time consuming the painted stitch lines came out quite good!


I was definitely proud of myself and what I was capable of doing.  The rest is history and Barn Quilts by Dave was born!  Since then my taping skills have improved and I spend less time touching up. 
They say that practice makes perfect and I'm constantly practicing!