Painted Barn Quilts for the Inside of My Home

Kaye
by Kaye
4 Materials
$15
2 Days
Easy
Being raised on a farm, I have a special love for the wonderful quilt squares painted on barns in Wisconsin. Last week, I saw a square with a blackface lamb painted in quilt hexagons. How clever is that!!!

As I lack an outbuilding to paint on a square; I decided to try painting squares for the indoors.

I had some small wood pieces cut and sanded from a left-over construction planks by my wonderful hubby. (I ask him when he gets home from golf, works like a charm.)
I found four quilt patterns on the web and printed them to size. While I was wondering aloud about how to transfer the patterns to wood, my daughter suggested carbon paper. (DUH!!) I had to order it from the web but thankfully it is still out there.
I used a ruler to keep the lines straight on the patterns. Note: try to keep your hands off while tracing as the carbon paper will make marks on the wood. I used tiny sandpaper to clean up the outside areas.
For painting, I tried several different methods
1) taping around the sections - DON'T DO THIS. It doesn't work and you'll used up a heck of a lot of tape re-proving this mistake. The acrylic paint will just run into the wood grain and make the edges fuzzy.
2) just paint the quilt "pieces" carefully close to the carbon paper lines. A small stiff flat brush will give you the best coverage.
After I finished painting the quilt pieces, I tried using a thin acrylic paint applicator to make clean black lines. Epic Fail. Luckily, I thought of using a Sharpie and it worked!
Finally, all four patterns are done and varnished. I was going for a more rustic look so I decided to experiment.
I dipped a cotton rag in some light grey chalk paint and briskly rubbed the boards up and down. The grit or chalk in the paint rubbed off some of the layers of paint and the grey paint aged the boards nicely.
Finally, we cut off the remainder of the wood to center the painted pattern. Then we used more wood leftovers to glue on a frame.
Resources for this project:
Carbon paper
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