Mothers Day Barn Quilt

I have to admit, it's nice to have a project to blog about.  Between Masters degree homework, and the fact that southern Indiana has had 8 days without rain in April, there hasn't been a lot of opportunity to do much.  I did, however, take advantage of the break in the rain yesterday with the help of my husband to get started on the Mother's Day present for my Mom.  And Mom doesn't read this blog, so for those of you who know her, don't say anything about it. 

Barn quilts are big around here, and Mom's been wanting on.  I looked at some, but why buy something I can make for cheaper?  So that's exactly what I did.  My husband cut the plywood for me into a 42" x 42" square, and I sanded it down on the front so I'd have a smooth painting surface.  The sander is, by the way, the only power tool that I'm actually allowed to use.  Once the plywood was cleaned, I primed it, and gave it a couple of coats of white paint.

I found the quilt block that I wanted to paint in a book that I borrowed from my mother-in-law and used a trick I learned in Art class long ago.  I divided the plywood into 10 1/2" squares to make it easy to lay out the quilt pattern.

Basically all this pattern is was triangles, so it really wasn't too complicated to lay out.  Basic geometry skills help.

Once I got the pattern laid out, I went through and marked which triangle should be which color.

After that, it was time to paint.  If you aren't sure handed, you might want to tape off the triangles, but I refuse to use painters tape, mostly because I'm too lazy to.  Plus all those Art classes helped.  I got sample pots of paint from Lowe's to paint the triangles.  My sister suggested mixing my own, but I'm not very consistent went it comes to mixing paint colors, so I went with the sample pots.

It took a couple of coats of the light and medium blue color, but the dark blue took 3 coats.  Once all the triangles were painted, all that was left to do was get rid of the grid lines.

I painted over the lines with white paint, but if you have primer, it would be a good idea to paint it with primer first.  It took several coats to cover the pencil lines...like 10 coats, no lie.  The final step is to spray it with a clear coat of sealer to keep the paint safe.

But I'm happy with the finished product, and I'm excited to see it hanging on the barn at my parents house.

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