So, for years I have wanted to make a barn quilt for my barn – ha!  Even before we had a barn, I had drawn up so many different designs, layouts, where I would put it – I remember one idea was to put it on the back of the garage since that is what you see from the road as you drive by, but I just never did it – mostly I don’t think my hubby wanted one. So was I ever surprised when he came home with the stuff I had mentioned that I would need to make one. Whoop Whoop!!!

I found one on pinterest that I was in love with so I set my sites on doing one like that.

I made my barn quilt 3′ x 3′ – which set my hubby off on a bit of a tizzy – why not just make it 4’x4′ – that would be a half sheet of plywood, why cut it down again and waste that 1’x3′ piece and the other half of the plywood.  Ha, little does he know that I have plans for the rest of that plywood!!! I have a star make of twigs on the barn now and that is 3′ across, and I just felt the 4′ square would have been to much for that small space (we have a modern day barn, not one with a huge face so space is limited.

Once I had my 3’x3′ piece, I sanded it down to get rid of the rough edges, then I applied sanding sealer – because the hubby said I should – the paint doesn’t soak in so much then, I guess.  I then applied 3 coats of white (exterior) paint.  He said I only needed 2, but I could still see brush strokes/roller marks and I’m fussy!

As you go thru these pictures and instructions you will notice that I use tools from other craft areas – like an 18″ quilting ruler you see in the first picture.

So I cut some stars out of vinyl. and applied them to the taped off “Blue” side of the board. Then I went in and cut some more – I didn’t think I had that much space, but I guess I did.	I painted 3 coats of blue on this board to get the density that I wanted. The I picked off the vinyl stars.
I laid out and cut long strips of vinyl for the stripes. I was set on a certain design and pattern. I had to extend 2 of the lines because my cutter only cuts 24″ length.	I was really worried about the red paint at first, but after 2 coats it was beautiful.
Just a few touchups This next part seems so silly considering that it’s going to be hanging from the top of the barn and NO ONE will see it up close…but while the second coat of red was drying, I went and touched up all the stars a bit.  there was some bleeding under the vinyl – I didn’t go around all the edges (that’s a lot of edges around all those stars) and made them even.  It looks great to me and that’s what matters. On to the stripes.	Most people would have just left it like that, but not me, I needed/wanted something to break up, help define the stripes and the pattern – it was playing with my eyes. So I need to do a shadow. So I taped off the areas that were in a fold… I found some really old black paint, mixed it all up – took about 15 minutes of mixing to get it back ‘together’, then I took the mixing stick, put it in a small glass, poured water over it and used that for the shadowing. I had a piece of paper that I would ‘dab’ on and then dry brushed over the ‘shadow’ areas.

The shading is very subtle, but makes such a difference, just the right amount to break-up the wave just enough.

So much fun, I loved doing this piece.