Friday, December 4, 2015

Barns on the Brain

Julie, maker of the incredibly, fabulously awesome quilt, See Rock City, and I have been talking  about barns lately. Mostly she's laughing at me. All the while she was making See Rock City, I was telling her there weren't that many barns around here.

Of course, that was when I lived in the city. Now I live out in the "boonies" (actually I'm less than five miles from the old place),  I see them all over the place. This purple one is less than a mile from my new home.

And then there's this one, on the way to work.


and this one is across the street from Quilted Threads. The last time I went to QT, I took the "back way" instead of the highway, and passed at least a dozen barns.

 I stopped to take a picture of this one. So I'm eating a lot of crow!

Julie wrote a book about making "improvisationally pieced barns," based on things we see in real barns. It's coming out in April of 2016. Julie and I have had a lot of conversations about it, and now I wanna make a barn.

Or two.

Or three.
This is my brother (the fine furniture maker)'s workshop. It looks like a barn. This photo was taken last May.

He built it (naturally), and I think this might be a good place to start. (This photo was taken last week. My brother and his wife live in the high desert in Colorado, where they already have snow on the ground.)

This is the inside of my brother's workshop. We all like to see each other's sewing studios, so I thought you might like a peek inside. Here's what he had to say about it when he sent me these pictures: "The barn is forty feet wide. The shop is heaven!!"

 (sigh)


Yup, I'm between projects and can't think of another "normal" quilt to make, so I'm gonna try my hand at making a barn.


8 comments:

Heidi said...

It's funny, every time I see a barn now, I'm thinking of Julie ;-)
And what's even funnier, I think out of a sudden there way more barns here than before ;-)

Purple Boots and Pigtails said...

They're everywhere! They're everywhere!

suzanne, dutchess county NY said...

I love to see the different styles of barns and how they vary from region to region. Those you took photos of have those great Windows over the doors!

Nancy Near Philadelphia said...

;-)

Quiltdivajulie said...

There's just something about barns . . .

Nancy J said...

Your brother's barn/workshop is superb, love that huge table on castors.

Kathy said...

And, I am sure you'll turn out something extraordinary, too! That is what you do, even with "normal" quilts! Pick up that hammer and saw!!!!

Mary Ellen said...

I love barns, too. The more dilapidated, the better. Here in Missouri there are a lot of them.