If you're driving through rural Michigan, you may notice some barns include unique colorful patterns on the side. They're known as "Barn Quilts" and are part of a growing trend that's helping grow Michigan's Agro-tourism sector with one-of-a-kind barn trail maps.
WCMU's Tina Sawyer got a chance to talk with Susan Shantz from the Quilt Trails of Michigan. Shantz started the conversation by explaining first how the these non-fabric quilts are made.
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Susan Shantz: What we do is we take MDL which is multi density overlay. It's basically a plywood with a nice heavy craft paper on it. So that it is a nice smooth paintable surface. So we lay out the design, draw the design. And paint it right on the on the wood and then we sweet talk some county officials into loaning us their cherry picker and A and an employee to go hang these quilt blocks up on barns.
Tina Sawyer: Because these are quite large, right?
SS: Yes, they're 8 foot square, so that's 24 by 8 sheets of plywood. That's a lot to handle, but we developed a system of being able to get them up on the barn.
TS: So, Susan, what is the history behind the barn quilts?
SS: There was a lady Donna Sue Groves and she is considered the inspiration behind all the cool trails across Michigan and Canada. But in either 2000 or 2001 she decided to start this project and she wanted to do a quilt block to put on her mother's tobacco barn. This was in southern Ohio. She got a group together and they started doing that and they said, well, let's do a whole route that people could travel and look at. So they did that and it just caught on. I started mine in 2012 and I was the 4th Quilt Trail in Michigan. It's the first trail was Alcona County, so it just one by one. People saw these quilt blocks on barns and they wanted to do it too. We have a great farming community and we have some wonderful barns.So to me it celebrates the heritage of the farmers and their families who came here in the early 1900's. The whole history of their family and their connection to the land and their barns history.
TS: So when you get that history, do you incorporate that into the barn quilt, then the art?
SS: Yes, if somebody has a special interest or they have a family quilt. I love being able to take a family qQlt and recreating that onto a barn quilt because it really just ties everything back in. To me, that's just it's really exciting.
TS: So how long is the Michigan Quilt trail?
SS: Each trail is an individual trail, and most people, when they get a group together, most will do either a whole county or they will do like down in Kalamazoo. They didn't do the whole county, they did the Vicksburg School District, so they only did barns in that school district, which was maybe a five mile trail. The last time we did a Rec card, I think we had 32. There's one in the thumb. It's actually 3 counties. It's the tip of the thumb.
TS: And are there specific designs or patterns or sizes that are used?
SS: You know, each quilt trail is unique. I always tell them it's your quilt trail. You do you. There are a lot of copyright free quilt blocks because we've been quilting from what the 1700s till today. But if you're going to take something out of a book, it's a simple e-mail.
‘May I have permission?’ And they're usually very happy. We do work with the Michigan Barn Preservation Network. They like to include us. There's a lot of information about our quilt trails on their website and stuff like that.
TS: So, Susan, what is the future of barn quilts?
SS: I don't see it ending anytime soon. Like I said, Donna Sue Grove started this in 2001, and ohh, there's a number of Instagram or websites or Facebook pages on trails. I think it's still growing. Michigan is still going strong. We're still adding a quilt trail every year we've only got 3 up in the UP right now, but.
TS: Maybe put them on lighthouses?
SS: We could! You know that would be cool. Just have fun!
You can find out more about the Michigan Quilt Trail, how to get maps and more at the Michigan Barn Preservation Network or at the Quilt Trails Facebook page.
