How I Made a Barn Quilt

Those of you that follow my other site, Daisey Jayne, know I've been into all kinds of needlework way before I started painting furniture and I've been a quilter for almost 30 years. 

While cruising around the internet somewhere I stumbled across Barn Quilts, my paint meets needlework dream come true. I must have been under a rock, I've never seen one before!

So I had to make one and I wanted it hung right on the front of our barn (garage designed to look like a barn). 

There was no agonizing at all when it came to designing this project, I wanted bold black and white, I chose the Farmer's Daughter block which I love, we made the board from all the cedar shiplap scraps we saved when we built our house.

 My husband Rick made the board in a couple of hours and though it was already primed I gave it a coat of Autentico Vintage in Casa Blanca.  Why aren't you using Versante you may ask, well yes Versante is perfection for use outdoors as it's a chalk paint with a built in top coat and is practically indestructible but for this project I wanted a heavily weathered look and it's also kind of an experiment to see how the cured Vintage does.

After the coat of Casa Blanca the next step was to draft the Farmer's Daughter block design, I worked from a diagram that I sketched and heavily relied on my quilting ruler and a t-square.

After it was all marked out I began taping the shapes that would be painted in the Nocturnal, I used Frog Tape which in my humble opinion is the best.

See those little pieces of tape through out the design? Those are there to remind me that those shapes are not painted and stay white.

After the painting was done I let it dry overnight and gave it a good going over with a sanding block to get the distressed look I was after.

I let the Barn Quilt cured for about a week before we hung it outside.  There is no topcoat.

Rick with the help of a few ladders hung the piece exactly where I wanted it.

That's it for now, I hope you're all staying healthy and happy!