"Barn" Quilt

This is my "Barn" quilt! It's a huge thing in Western NY to make these painted wood quilt blocks to hang on a barn, or garage or house. My house is small. So my Barn quilt is small. 22" x 22". (it is snowing as you can see in the pic)
My friend Tracy J and I have been talking about these for awhile. Her family owns a company and her son, Jamison, was able to program our quilt blocks of choice into a machine that routed out the design onto a pre-primed sign board. I think it's 1" thick. Awesome, right? No measuring. No taping. That is the hard part for me. The detail stuff. So a few weeks ago Tracy and I set up to paint. We had to prime the routed lines and the edges. Then onto painting! I chose a crimson red, a cream and an almost black. My block is called Winged Square II. We used an old 70's book of block patterns. I love wings. I love this block!

Here it is naked. A 22" x 22" routed, ready to paint board, your choice of block, would be $50.00 plus shipping. Tracy is making one that is 2 4' x 8' boards for her garage. That, of course would be more. Jamison is willing to make them for anyone that is interested. You can contact me and I will put you in touch with him.

This is Tracy's 2 board Star block. I cannot wait to get a picture of it installed!
Mine will be on my front porch, next to my red door.
I just may need another one!

My sweet Fiona. What a face.

Tomorrow I meet with one of my art quilt groups. We are changing our name from RiffRaff to a more appropriate fiber-y name. We will spend time making a group blog tomorrow. I will be getting some pointers from my friend Thearica in a bit. We are starting our Whisper Quilt RR tomorrow. The participants made an 8.5" x 11" quilt to pass to each person to serve as inspiration for them to make a piece based on it. In the end there will be multiple quilts that will be inspired by each quilt done by each member. It will be interesting to "read" them at the end. Looking forward to it.

My friend Janet Root, one of the most talented women I know, as well as a very gracious and giving woman, is featured on page 62 of the current issue (#60 Dec/Jan 2013) of Quilting Arts magazine! She could be a featured artist in QA. She has quite a body of work from traditional to art. Her quilt Jam & Jelly was the reason I made my Jam & Jelly.

Brought Melissa's favorite pizza joint's delights to her and Dave's last night for dinner. Their little apartment is really cute. Brought her 3 Christmas tree's. One for them and one for Sophia's mom and a friend. More cleaning out! I left with all four wheels still on my Trailblazer!

I have learned:

1. Michael was awarded a 1-Star Coin from a General that was visiting his COP. He was recognized, along with two other soldiers, for their leadership so far in AFG. The big deal is that a General actually gave it to them. Anyone that knows Micheal is not surprised by the award.
2. How to use Photoshop Elements to resize a pic to a specified requirement for submission of a quilt to QuiltCon. Yes, I am taking a shot at getting into the first QuiltCon show. All they can say is yes, or no!
3. I am devouring a jar of homemade Camponata. So good.
4. A new junk store is opening in Batavia. I was alerted by my little favorite, Ted, that I would love it. I stopped in today (not even open yet, but we can look around and buy!) and purchased a treasure. It is an 1800's small dresser with a small mirror...all layers of paint distressed. It will be placed in my bathroom. When I get it in (need help) I will get a pic. I saw so many cool things there. Ted has a train lantern and an old tube radio waiting for pickup. Junk heaven!
5. BRUCE, by Peter Ames Carlin. Great read for any Springsteen fan.
6. Argo. Excellent movie
7. My 15 year old nephew made this video for Michael. It is awesome.