Sewing With Nancy

The story of the American quilt trail featuring quilt squares painted large on barns across North America is the story of one of the fastest growing grass roots public arts movements in the US and Canada. To tell about this folk-art phenomena is author, Suzi Parron. Welcome to Sewing With Nancy, Suzi. Thank you, Nancy. This is a fun book to read. It's history, quilting, beauty. Tell me how you got started on this. Well, I was actually on a camping trip. I was traveling cross county from Georgia to Yellowstone in a tent with my dog. I saw a barn with a quilt on it. I thought, my goodness, what is that? Sure. The woman who lived there actually told me a little about the quilt trail. Then you got in contact with one of the first people that had a barn quilt. Yes, in looking into it I got in contact with Donna Sue Groves and she is actually the one who conceived of the idea to honor her mother, Maxine and their quilting heritage. She actually ended up taking the idea to her community and having them create the first quilt trail. Here's Donna Sue's quilt, wooden quilt, on her barn called "The Snail Trail." Yes. One thing about the barn, it's funny that Donna Sue said, it's such an ugly barn. She had to dress it up for her mom. And indeed she did. She certainly did. Now some of the interesting barn quilts that you have found include a breast cancer awareness quilt. Yes, the one that we talked about is one that an entire cancer coalition came together to create. It has all the names of the people who created it. It was very much a community effort to raise money to actually have mammograms for women in that community. Many states have quilt trails. Oh, yes, about 47 states actually have them. Counties have them or communities. It's fun to get a little map from the Chamber of Commerce or online. Absolutely. So what's another favorite barn quilt of yours? Well, there's one that I particularly love in Ohio that's painted right on the barn doors. It's something that an individual artist spent so much painstaking time to create that. It has a lot of dimension. I'm going to convince my brother that he needs one of these on our family farm. I wonder if he would do this. Not all the barns that have quilts are retired barns. Oh, not at all. A lot of them are working barns on working farms. People do, when you go to talk to them about their quilt barn-- A gentleman will get off his tractor and come over and give you a tour of the farm. I've learned a lot about barns and how they're constructed. You're touring right now for your second book. Yesterday you were in Iowa. Yes, I was, a beautiful, beautiful day in Iowa I enjoyed a wonderful time. And I will be back in Wisconsin in a couple of weeks to see some of the larger quilt trails here. As you're traveling, you find most of the barn quilts are a certain size. Yes. They're usually 8' by 8'. A sheet of plywood is 4' by 8'. Sure. So they'll put two of those together that's kind of a natural size, being 8' by 8'. The trick for me would be to decide what pattern I'm going to put on the barn. A lot of people say that because there are so many. Eventually you do have to decide on one. It's not like your clothing for the day that's going to change tomorrow. Right. Not just individuals do barn quilts but it's a learning tool for art students. Yes, there's a wonderful group of kids in Kankakee, Illinois who worked together. They were actually home schooled but they had art lessons. They worked together to create an art project. It's just phenomenal I mean, so many people look at it an say that's three-dimensional. It's got to be. When I saw that quilt in the book I thought, uh-uh this is a quilt hanging on the barn but it is dimensioned. So they learned not only from the flat quilt they put a drape into it. Yeah, they learned the methods that the old masters would have used to create a three-dimensional effect in their artwork. What do you find the most fascinating thing about what people say about barn quilts as you travel around? I think one of the major things is that barn quilts bring communities together. We're so fragmented now and everyone is into electronics and all that sort of thing. But this is something that kind of brings people back to their roots. So many people have told me I have all these new friends because we paint together. Oh, wow. It reaches their lives on that level that they get to know one another and spend time together. Well, Suzi, thank you for sharing with us your barn quilt story. Maybe when you have your second book complete you can come back and share more adventures of finding folk art and grass roots inspiration on the trail. Thanks so much, I'd love to do that. Thank you. I hope that you've enjoyed this program of Sewing With Nancy on fabric wraps. If you'd like more information, re-watch this program or many season's worth of programing you can go to nancyzieman.com, watch the videos. Find out more about the barn quilts and Suzi's adventures by clicking on "Nancy's Corner." And of course you can join me on all things social media. You can tweet with me, Facebook, and of course, watch my blog. I'd like to encourage you to come back next time. But for now, thanks for joining me. Bye for now.