How do quilts, a hand­made bed­cov­er, and barns, a large build­ing for cows, go togeth­er? Answer—when a barn sports a quilt­ed decoration.

It’s a nat­ur­al for the place where I live, Lan­cast­er Coun­ty, Pennsylvania—the home of Amish quilts, dairy farms, fields of hay and corn. But we are sort of a John­ny-come-late­ly. Quilt trails are found in 48 states and Cana­da. A local quilt­ing farm woman saw her first barn quilt in Ohio which inspired the one pro­filed in our local newspaper.

Some 7,000 wood­en or Mylar quilts were cre­at­ed by groups such as the Grange (a farm­ing orga­ni­za­tion I belonged to as a teenage farm girl). They can be found fol­low­ing quilt trails, and they aren’t all on barns.

Here is the arti­cle from our local news­pa­per. And, of course, some­thing so pop­u­lar has its own Face­book page.

I had nev­er before heard of quilts on barns, or quilt trails. In the sum­mer, we have corn mazes, tours of dairy farms, and Her­shey can­dy fac­to­ry. Do you have sim­i­lar activ­i­ties where you live? I’d love to hear about them.