Barn Raisings

Its been a full court press to figure out what I was going to do for the Carp Fair 'Beautiful Barns' block challenge because it needs to be submitted by the 25th, which means it needs to get into the mail a few days before that. No time to waste.

With the exception of the bottom border of Log Cabin blocks, it is built in vertical strips. I did that because I was paranoid that I would miscalculate someplace along the way and it wouldn't be wide enough (it needed to be 18.5" unfinished). Guess I know myself too well because I came up half an inch short. Thankfully I had more cream so I replaced an edge piece.

The silo is a fave of The Official Cookie Tester. It gave me pause as to the best way to construct the roof. First I appliquéd the roof to the background and then attached both pieces to the silo, and it worked well. I tried a new appliqué method - back basting - and really took to it, so much so that I appliquéd the pumpkin and the tree. Its a no fuss, no muss method and one that I can see adopting.

He also insisted on the weather vane so I needed to channel all of my 4-H embroidery skills from years gone by to make that happen. It seemed sort of appropriate though, given that this is a project for an agricultural fair.

We were encouraged to incorporate fall colours into the blocks so I thought a few Log Cabins would work.

Betty dropped hers off for shipping this morning and it is much more graphic than mine; she stitched hers all by hand.

We got a good laugh at what experts we had become in determining barn roof angles and the blue smoke that came from assembling them 😄.

The Friendship Star block is a remnant from a truck quilt that her son Ted sewed years ago when he was just a little tyke - it works perfectly. I also like the way she incorporated bits and pieces of a second red into the barn.

Both are now on their way back to Jean in time for next week's judging. I'm hoping that we are able to see all of the entries to see how everyone else interpreted the challenge - might just have to plan to attend the fair at the end of the month....M