Happenings on the Homestead in the Appalachian Mountains

Weekend Coffee Share

Hello there Adventurous Friends & Family, greetings from Georgia.  How you doing this 26th week of 2023?  We're halfway through the year, how can that be already?  I've been seeing advertisements that Christmas is 6 months away, Hallmark Channel advertised that their Christmas in July started this week & I've already started my Christmas shopping.  We had planned to go camping but the weather was calling for thunderstorms.  I didn't want our 1st outing in the tiny camper to be filled with rain & mud, also we were still waiting for the canopy to arrive.  We were wise to postpone.  There were thunderstorms in between bouts of beautiful sunshine & spring like temperatures.  We went to a yard sale in search of a yeti cooler that was advertised.  One was too big, one was too small.  We ended up getting a meat grinder at the yard sale to replace the one left behind in South Dakota that was sold in our yard sale.  Kevin's uncle Pete & some of his family stopped by to do a little chicken trading.  We enjoyed visiting while sitting out on the front porch, we talked about having a family get together with all the kids & grandkids at our place, maybe sometime in the fall.  Grab a coffee or your favorite beverage & we'll talk a little about barn quilts, come walk with me...

*  Back years ago, we noticed designs popping up on barns, houses & buildings.  We discovered the designs were called barn quilts.  Kevin got a piece of metal & was going to paint us a barn quilt to go on the barn that we had at the time in Iowa.  He never got around to doing the painting & ended up using the metal to make doors on the side by side not too long ago.  The place we bought here in Georgia came with a barn quilt already hung on the side of the house.  I think it's a variation of the 8-pointed star pattern.  We are delighted with it.  I'm not sure if men get delighted about stuff so maybe it's just me that is delighted. We both like it for sure.

The town of Hayesville North Carolina that I work in, has barn quilts all over the place.  There is a barn quilt studio next door to the office.  A customer came in recently & asked what the designs on all the buildings were. The barn quilts, I had questioned back. Yes, that was them. 

Come to find out, there is a quilt trail project. It's a quilt block walking trail that is part of the town's Pedestrian Connectivity.  There is a map of the locations of the quilt blocks along with other arts & historical points of interest in the downtown area.  

I discovered 10 quilts along the street in front of my work office.  Each quilt block has a unique name, some names have changed thru the years.  Kevin's mother was a quilter & my mother is a quilter, so we are familiar with some of the different patterns.  I made several patch work quilts years ago using the tie knot for quilting.  I did a search to find out more about barn quilts & how they got started, Barn Quilts - the story.

Cross & Crown - This one is
on my office building, my walk
started here.

Tumbling Blocks

Lone Star

Triple Sunflower - The 1st quilt
block installed on this project.

Mariner's Compass

  

The blue one is an Ohio Star variation.  According to my research, the Ohio Star
 pattern was the very 1st barn quilt that started the quilt trail in Ohio.
The other one is Interlocking Square/Saw Tooth Star in a Square.

  

Log Cabin - at end of the street.

Patchwork

*  Here is a closer look at those that were a little farther away.  I wanted to give an idea of the different placements of the blocks.  I had fun taking pictures & looking up the names of the quilt block patterns.

                         

 

I wanted to sit a spell but my
lunch break was about over,
I had to head back to work.

The chickens are getting their
personalities & colors.  This
little beauty is a golden laced
wyandotte.

These are some of the things going on in my neck of the woods, how has your week been?

No wonder this iris didn't bloom,
it's a gladiolus.