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!
As 2011 comes to the end and we ring in 2012, I would like to reflect on the past year. I started the year with good intentions and enthusiasm about continuing to make barn quilts. I did start the year by making the New Year's barn quilt. This was a challenge presented to me by my friend, Suzy Parron from Stone Mountain, GA. I have a link to Suzi's blog here on my blog. I finished the New Year's barn quilt in about a week.
I thought that it would be a neat idea to make a barn quilt to comemorate all the holiday's of the year. If you've been following my blog, you will see that the idea never materialized and I went into dormency (for a lack of a better word). Other activities came up through the course of the year which didn't help. To be honest, that really isn't a concrete excuse. I should have found time. When autumn came I told myself that I had to get back into the game. Halloween was coming up, so I made the Halloween Pinwheel.
This project got my creative juices flowing again and I was looking into what to make for Christmas. In the meantime, I received a much needed adrenaline boost from a lady in Illinois who wanted me to make a barn quilt for her mother, as a Christmas present!! I couldn't believe that one of my creations would be hanging on someone's house, out of state!!! As of this writing I'm awaiting photo's from Illinois of the barn quilt hanging. When I receive those photo's I will post it on my blog!
I now had to think about what to make for Christmas. My thoughts were answered by a good friend of our's, Sue Messinger, who I had made a door quilt (1' x 1') back in 2010. Unfortunately, I don't have a photo of it to show. Sue wanted me to make a Christmas door quilt for her. I didn' take long to come up with a pattern!!
Does it look familiar? That's right! It's the same block pattern that I used for the Illinois barn quilt.
Now that the creative juice's are flowing, I ordered new business cards AND door magnets for my pickup truck, so I can catch the attention of all the lovely quilting ladies traveling on the roads to their favorite quilt shops!!! I've been commissioned by a lady who I work with to make 2 barn quilts for her. One for her summer cottage in New Hampshire and one for her home her in Connecticut. So, hopefully, 2012 will be a great year for Barn Quilts by Dave!!
I want to take this time to wish all of you a happy and healthy New Year!!
Several posts back I featured my latest 'door' quilt (1' x 1') that I made for a friend, Sue Mesinger. She already had a door quilt that I made for her last year, but wanted something with a Christmas theme. She sent a photo of the door quilt that is now hanging on the front door that I recently made for her.
It's amazing how the colors pop out at you using a dark colored door as a background.
Connecticut is blessed to have a large number of quilt shops around the State. Just ask my wife. She has visited everyone of them.........and more than once!!!! I've been to several of these shops with her and I was amazed at the steady number of customer's that come in and out of these shops. So, how do I take advantage of this customer traffic? The online printing company that I use to print out my business cards, also offer door magnet's. Fantastic!!! I had them make up two for me to put on my pickup truck, so that the quilting ladies, traveling the highways of Connecticut, hopefully will take notice and give me a call. Or, traveler's who have no idea what a barn quilt is may just call me, or visit my website, to see what they are. Should be interesting!!
When you think about Christmas in New England your first thought is snow covered fields, a definite nip in the air and the sounds of snow blowers and snow mobiles. Not this year!!!! We have had temperatures in the 50's and 60's for the last month. The fields are still green and I've heard the sounds of lawnmower's, weed wacker's and leaf blowers!!! So, how can you get into the Christmas spirit with these conditions?
Last year I made a door quilt for our friend, Sue Mesinger. I call it a door quilt because it's 12 inches square and hangs on your door. Several months ago Sue wanted to know if I would make another one for her. I told her that I would. Being close to Christmas I decided to do one with a Christmas theme.
Coping the pattern that I used for my last barn quilt that I shipped to Illinois, I proceeded with picking out the colors that I would use for this one. I would also add details to the door quilt, to make it more Christmasy. Is that such a word?!
I stuck with the typical colors of Christmas for the design which are red and green. Once the board was painted, I started to think about what type of patterns I would add to it. I had purchased a package of rubber stamps from my local A. C. Moore craft store. There was a stamp in the package that looked like a star burst. But, when I did a sample stamping using white paint, the impression looked like a cluster of snowflakes. Fantastic!! I then taped off the dark red and became stamping my impression using white paint. I was very happy with the result! I didn't want to leave the white area's left barren, so I thought holly's may look good there. I went on the computer and search out line drawings for holly and came up with what you see here. I sized the drawing down to fit the area, placed the design over the spot it was going to go and then, with a pen, I traced over the picture making a line impression onto the board. That impression became my template to apply the paint. I did the same thing with the silver bells and the large snowflakes. This next picture give you a better look at the designs.
I then finished the board by painting the border. This border was painted silver to match the silver bells.
This quilt was a lot of fun to work on. It gave me a chance to hone my skills on detail painting and my first time using Folk Art paints. This quilt also got me into the Christmas spirit, even though it's still mild outside and no forecast of snow for, at least, another week or so.
I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!
My wife came home, several weekends ago, from a visit to her local quilt shop to inform me that she saw a 8' x 8' barn quilt hanging in front of their quilt shop. Wow, another barn quilt in Connecticut and it's not mine?!?! I just had to check it out. So, I stopped by today, with camera in hand, to look at it.
The design pattern is called Lone Star. I was told that the barn quilt was made using floor underlayment, which is usually a very thin material. According to the owner's husband, who made the barn quilt, said that the underlayment was ease to work with and handle. The next photo is a closer view of the barn quilt.
This is the first 8' x 8' barn quilt that I know of in Connecticut. If you are in Connecticut and would like to stop by to see this barn quilt, it is located at Lisa's Clover Hill Quilts, 27 Webster Hill Rd, Berlin, CT. With any luck, there will be more quilts like this appearing around the State and we could have an OFFICIAL Barn Quilt Trail!!
I finally made the big time!!!!!! Well, sort of........ I received an email last month from a lady in Albany, IL. She had see my blog with my last posting from the beginning of the year and she was wondering if I was still making barn quilts, as she was interested in having me make one, so she could give it to her mother for Christmas. I wrote her back stating that I was still making them and would make one for her. She, her name is Becky, told me that she would look for a quilt block pattern that she liked and would email me a photo. About a week later, I received this photo.
My first reaction was, "OH MY GOD!!", she wants this entire pattern duplicated on a 2' x 2' board!! Well, I figured if that's what the customer wants, I couldn't refuse. Besides, MY barn quilt would be going to Illinois!! After receiving the photo, I emailed her and, to my relief, she said that she just wanted one of the star patterns duplicated. Phew!!! Becky would leave it up to me to use whatever colors that I suggested. I told her that I would email her photo's showing the progression of her barn quilt. The next photo that I sent was to show her how the pattern would look on the board.
She approved the pattern layout and I commenced with applying the colors. I'm going to let you in on a little secret. When these boards are cut, they are not a true 24" x 24" square. One side my be slightly off by 1/8th of an inch, due to the thickness of the saw blade that is cutting the board. What I will do is draw the border lines from the edge of the board inward is such a way as to create a true 23" square. I then calculate and plot out my design pattern using the 23" square.
The next photo that I sent Becky was showing the colors on the board. If you notice, I don't have the border painted on yet. I usually paint that on after the pattern is painted.
After receiving Becky's approval, I told her that I would like to add some embellishment's to the pattern to make it unique. I gave her some of the idea's that I had in mind. She left it up to me to do what I wanted! The following photo's are a result of that.
Using some everyday household tools, I created the spackling effect on the corners. What those tools were, I will leave to your imagination. I shouldn't give out my trade secrets!! The lady bugs are from a rubber stamp.
I had a lot of fun making this quilt. Actually, this is the first one that I've done using an actual photograph of a quilt to work out the pattern and not just a line drawing.
