Happy National Quilting Day!!!

Happy National Quilting Day!!!

I don't know about you, but I love, love, love that there is a national holiday for the hobby that we love so much. 

This is the first time in years that I didn't celebrate quilting by going to a National Quilters' Day event with my guild and three other guilds that usually celebrate the day together.  I didn't even go to a quilt shop today!

This is about the only thing I have seen as far as quilting goes today:

a barn with a painted quilt block mounted to the side. It sits on the county line right after you cross the bridge from Indiana to Kentucky.   Isn't it beautiful?  I have always wanted a barn, and now knowing that I could mount a painted quilt block to the side of one makes me want one even more! 

I'm excited to tell you this, though.   My community is in the process of creating their own quilt barn trail!!! 

See,  a few years ago I was the chairperson of the National Quilters' Day celebration for my Quilt Guild.  I had heard there were quilt barns in eastern, Kentucky, so I invited someone to come and be our guest speaker that day to talk about the barns and maybe show us slides of barns in the area. 

I don't even know where this quilt barn is located, but I needed a photo here.

   What was so cute about it all is that when I called the lady to see if she needed a slide projector, or some other piece of equipment to share her photos with us, she said, "Sure!  I'll go outside and shoot their pictures now!"  For some reason knowing that she could just "go outside", wander down the road a bit and get chased by dogs, crawl through a ditch and climb over a fence just so she could shoot pictures of the barns,  made me wish I lived there, too. 

 During her presentation, I was so overwhelmed by their beauty. Words can not express the feeling I had inside of me. I get tears in my eyes just thinking about it. It's silly, I know, but there's something about a barn sitting on a hill, or peeking through some trees, that does something to me.  And one with a painted quilt block mounted to it...I just can't explain!

I don't think these are some of the same barns that Hope showed us that day, but just so you can see what I'm talking about you can go here:  http://rcquilttrail.tripod.com/locationofquiltbarnwebsite.htm.  Be sure to scroll down to the bottom where you will see the names of the quilt blocks.  Click on the block and you will see the barn with that particular quilt block mounted to the barn. 

Although Terry and I had this dream of inspiring barn owners of our community to agree to have painted quilt blocks mounted to their barns, some life altering events that happened to both of us (we never can do things alone.  What happens to her usually happens to me.)  prevented us from having the time and energy it would take to devote to this project.  However, we are  thankful that someone else had the dream, and is seeing this through.   You can't  imagine how excited we are that our community will soon has it's own quilt barn trail. Quilt blocks are being painted as I write.  It's exciting!!!  I'll let you know as soon as they are ready for viewing. 

Well, I got a little sidetracked, and it's getting late.  I may just go in my sewing room and piddle around for a little bit while I'm waiting for my youngest daughter to get home.  She started driving.  Uggghhhh!!!!! 

So, what did you do to celebrate today? 

Edit: Okay, now I'm really excited! I had heard a comment here and there about a quilt barn project happening in one of the counties not too far from where I live. It is in Ohio County. So, I googled them, and it looks like their quilt barn project is completed! You can click here to see their quilt barns.   I'm sure there's more by now though. 

And, another exciting thing that I can't wait to announce to my guild is that Eleanor Burns' newest book features barn quilts with quilt blocks on them. Patricia Knoechel, her sister, is traveling around the country doing demos on this book and another book named Orion's Star. She will be coming to my guild in June to our Quilt Show and will be giving demos both days. I talked to her the other day, and told her about the quilt barn trails close by and how my community is in the beginning stages of creating one,  and she's excited, too. It's perfect timing!!!