Artigianati.com

Quilt Pattern: Italian Tile - Alan and Yvonne DeVoe - Monroe,WI

by Amanda Lutey

RANDOLPH, Wis. - An educator who spends his free time creating signs has found a new creative outlet -- making barn quilts. 
Wayne Vanderploeg, principal of Randolph Elementary/Middle School, operates a half-man sign shop in the evenings and on weekends. He has worked on two barn-quilt projects in the last year and has more in the works. Barn quilts are a nice break from his usual sign painting projects, he said, and they give him the chance to express himself more. 
"The people really get into it the block is one they really like and what they use as their 'signature,"' Vanderploeg said of the patterns chosen as barn quilts. 
Barn quilts are a form of rural art found in more than 20 states. A barn quilt is typically an 8-foot-square quilt-pattern block painted or mounted on the side of a barn or silo. In Wisconsin, Door, Green, Kewaunee, Lafayette, Monroe and Racine counties have barn-quilt projects that help promote rural tourism by offering maps of quilt "trails." ......

Read more at  -  http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-wi-barnquilts,0,4369144.story