Modern Hill Woman

Barn Quilts

Have you ever been on a road trip out in the country and seen an old dilapidated barn with a brightly painted quilt block on the front of it? If you are lucky enough to have seen such a thing, it is called a barn quilt.

A barn quilt is a form of Americana folk art found in different rural areas of the U.S. It’s a huge traditional quilt square pattern painted on plywood, and is generally 8’ x 8’ or 4’x 4’ in size, so it can be seen from a distance. They are often done in dedication to a specific person and hung up on a family barn. Others may represent the family as a whole or a community.

Barn quilts are not a new tradition, they are a part of the vibrant patchwork of our country’s past. In fact, they have been around for almost 300 years. They originated in Pennsylvania after immigrants from Austria, Germany and the Netherlands entered America. Most of these immigrants were Amish, Mennonite, Lutheran, and other groups looking for religious freedom. As they settled in this country, they resorted to barn quilts to protect from evil spirits and bring good fortune to their land, much like the Pennsylvania Dutch hex signs. The practice spread to other areas, including New England and the Midwest.

Besides the aesthetic appeal to an otherwise plain structure, each distinctive pattern served another crucial purpose...navigation. This graphic art form became a part of a farm’s identity, as each distinctive “quilt square” helped travelers identify and distinguish a certain farm by searching for its specific barn quilt pattern.

Today, modernized huge barn quilt squares have started popping up from the Midwest to the East. There are hundreds of quilt trails in between, with maps developed to guide viewers to their locations. Over 7,000 paintings in over 48 states can be viewed on the Great American Barn Quilt Trail.