Barn Quilt on White Dutch Barn, Lindside, West Virginia
– Click on the image to enlarge or purchase –
Whilst driving through the West Virginia countryside I came upon this White Dutch style barn with a beautiful quilt decoration on it. Barn quilts are painted quilt squares. They are usually fashioned on boards and then mounted on a barn or other building. While cloth quilts are made up of a series of squares of the same pattern placed together, a barn quilt is almost always a single square. The size of the squares vary, but usually, they measure 8 feet.
The majority of barn quilts are comprised of simple geometric shapes, like squares, rectangles and triangles. This makes them easier to create. They usually are painted in solid colors. The simplicity in shape and the vibrancy of solid colors make these blocks easily seen from afar. If they are too complicated, the details can be lost. From my research for this post it seems that this particular design is one of the more complex ones.
Just as fabric quilts have their own unique history, so do barn quilts. While barns were not painted back in the day, they were decorated with different types of folk art. This included quilt blocks once paint was readily available and affordable. People chose certain blocks to reflect particular meanings.
In the early 2000s, barn quilts start showing up again, and these are the ones we are seeing today. This is also when the first quilt trail began, originating in Ohio.
I could not find a quilt trail for this particular example which is located in Monroe County, West Virginia. However, a little further north in Pocahontas County there is a quilt trail with a dozen decorated barns and a further six planned.
Barn Quilt on White Dutch Barn, Lindside, West Virginia
– Click on the image to enlarge or purchase –
