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“We should put one up,” Jim told Ranah on the way home from
that quilt show. “We’ve got a perfect spot on Highway 19.” They often
put up a large Christmas display because their house can be seen
from the Highway. Ranah kept that idea in her head and didn’t think
much about it until two years later when they had their granary resided.
“I thought, you know what, if we had those barn quilts ready, we
could have them put the barn quilts up,” Ranah said. She quickly
went to work, designing and painting two 4’ by 4’ barn quilts in five
days. Those two barn quilts went up in 2011 during their barn’s residing process, where they still hang today.
After Sample’s barn quilts were erected, she wondered how
she could be included on a barn quilt trail. She contacted Suzi
Parron, author of the book Barn Quilts and the American Quilt Trail
Movement for assistance. Parron asked Sample to send her website
address, which she hasn’t quite gotten set up yet. Instead, Sample
then started to log barn quilts on her own and has since created a
video slideshow program of the quilts. In her logging process, along
with the quilt owner’s name and address, she includes two pictures
of the quilt: a close-up picture and a location picture of what it is on.
When Sample would visit to log a barn quilt, that owner would
tell her about other ones and soon she was receiving texts and
phone calls about barn quilts around the area. She has so far logged
over 75 barn quilts in Clay and Union counties and a couple in
Lincoln County. She plans to head toward the Yankton area soon,
already knowing where some are located because of a previous barn
quilt tour put on by the Dakota Prairie Quilt Guild.
Sample explained to me how the barn quilt tradition has evolved
over the years. What once began as a size requirement of 8’ by 8’ and
a location requirement of being displayed on an old barn located
on a hard surfaced road has gone to limitless size and location
requirements today. Sample has seen many unique barn quilts in
many sizes, the smallest one located on a birdhouse to the largest
being the traditional 8’ by 8’. She’s logged barn quilts not only
displayed on barns but also on garages, mailboxes, birdhouses, in
flower gardens and on fences.
Sample and I hopped in her truck and she took me on a small
quilt tour near her home. We saw various beautiful pieces of art in
many sizes and colors, and she explained to me that the quilts can
use the same patterns used on a fabric quilt, taking on a traditional
pattern or a special unique pattern. Ohio Star is the most common
pattern Sample has seen so far. As I gawked up at a massive 8’x 8’
barn quilt, I realized how challenging it would be to design and paint
a perfect pattern on two huge pieces of plywood, then hanging
those incredibly heavy pieces, side by side lining them up just
perfectly.
We visited a set of 4’ by 4’ barn quilts hung on a church sign and
Sample explained to me that she created both of them. She had
asked the Pleasant Valley Church Council if she could create a barn
quilt for their sign and they said as long as it was biblically based.
She did some research on patterns that she could use and ended up
with “David & Goliath” and “Job’s Tears” for their sign.
Sample gave her first presentation about two years ago at
Rhubarb Days at the W.H. Over Museum in Vermillion and has given
it several times since then. She enjoys giving the presentation,
explaining, “I would be delighted to continue to do that to extension
groups, gardening clubs, quilting groups, when they need a
program, for a nominal fee.”
Last fall, Sample took her love of barn quilts to teaching classes
about them. She has been teaching classes for OLLI-Osher Lifelong
Learning Institute, which has a site in Vermillion, Brookings and
Sioux Falls. OLLI has a wide variety of classes available to partake
in. She also gives barn quilt tours through the OLLI program and
has recently started teaching classes on how to design and paint
your own barn quilt. There’s been discussion about her instructing
another class on creating barn quilts class next fall.
As Sample showed me an example of the beginning stages of
creating a 2’ by 2’ barn quilt, I was amazed at the graphing and detail
involved in each piece. She said that the most crucial part in creating
a durable barn quilt is the type of wood that it is painted on. The
board used should be MDO board, which is a high quality plywood,
and should be primed well. There is a difference in opinion of quilt
designers in the paint used, some prefer oil-based while some prefer
latex paint.
Sample would love to share her barn quilt presentation with your
group or take you on a barn quilt tour. Call Ranah at 605-360-4269 or
email her at ranahs@valyousat.net.
If you ever feel the urge to go on a road trip, in search of
something new to see, why not seek out a barn quilt tour and take in
all of its beauty?
vBy Julie Eickhoff
References: www.barnquiltinfo.com, http://www.barnquilts.com/sac-county-quilt-a-fair.html
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