BARN QUILTS!!!

 How about these beautiful "quilt" designs?  As I was driving up to Decorah, Iowa, I started to see barns with these beautiful pieces if art work.  Since I had my camera and was on no time schedule, I started pulling off the road to take a picture of all I could find.

Here are six examples of the patterns you can see while driving.  In trying to find out about these patterns, I found a web-site describing this practice.  It appears to have begun in Pennsylvania and is believed to be about 300 years old.

 The patterns would help travelers find cross-roads and locate families.  By the 1830's to '40's, paint became less expensive and artists were hired to create patterns.  Often taken from folk designs and combined with geometric patterns from quilt squares, they have such names as "snail trail", "bear claw", "mariner's compass", "drunkards path", "patriotic North star", or "morning star", to name a few. 

As I was taking these pictures, I was reminded of my friend, Nathan.  Nathan is a young man, living in northeastern Alabama, who got involved with tearing down old barns.  What he ended up doing, though, was taking some of the barn wood and the old tin from the roofs and creating geometric designs with them. 

I am fortunate to have one of his pieces called "drunkards path" which was one of the signs used during the time of slavery to give messages to run-away slaves to help keep them safe from being captured.

As you can see by the different pictures, these are really quite something to see. 

I posted only six of the pictures I took.  I still have six more and will post those soon.  Sandy, hope you are enjoying seeing these.  You mentioned you were familiar with them and would like to see what I had.  So, to all of you, In Joy!!!!