A Painters Quilt

In the mountains of western North Carolina there is a wonderful

movement to place quilt patterns on old barns across the landscape.  These are painted and

range in size from 8 feet x 8 feet to a smaller 2' x 2' depending on their placement.

Artists recreate some of the vintage patterns and tie them into the wishes of the landowners.

Sometimes folks want a custom pattern that reflects their family or lifestyle.

It was the latter that inspired me to see if I could create a pattern of my own.

You may remember my grid and planning I did killing time on an airplane:

I had decided to use the shapes of wine bottle and birds as those represent two of our

favorite deck 'activities.'  Everything must be gridded as if you were to plan

a pattern for straight line pieceing of materials.

Next I had to transfer this pattern to a canvas carefully marking off a similar grid and sticking to the formula.  The pink color has nothing to do with my plan...it was paint used to

cover up a painting-gone-awry so I could recycle the expensive canvas.  I painted in the "muslin" color to get me started in visualizing where I was going with color.

Slowly and carefully I painted in each square, or portion thereof, and later I went back and did some of the background "fabric" in a slightly different tone just so it would have the look of cloth.

Obviously my canvas was not square so I had to fill it in and write the name of our home as well as the name I gave the pattern on the space below.  It took about 2-3 coats of paint over everything.

And ta-da!  It's not on a barn for sure but it is in the mountains of western Carolina.

I think we will enjoy knowing that our "Bottles & Birds" can be added

to the quilt tour...in our neighborhood at least.