I'm a member of our counties' Barn Quilts group and we had a meeting last Wednesday night. We're getting ready to produce 0ur first Tama County Barn Quilts Calendar for 2010 and it's starting to get exciting! For those of you unfamiliar with how this all works.............. Our organization works with farmers/landowners who have neat old farm buildings and we supply them with 8' x 8' quilt blocks that are mounted on their buildings. The idea being to help preserve some interesting rural architecture, promote quilting and increase tourism. Not a bad combination! Anyway -- I borrowed a couple of photos to show you what I'm talking about because I thought some of you might find it interesting.

There are several counties in Iowa (and a few other states too) involved in this project and it's fun to be driving down the road and spot a quilt block hanging from an old building.

We've got about 14 quilt blocks hung in our county, several more in-process and a few more that we need to put together and paint. We're planning on having another 12 finished by next spring so we'll be ready for our 2nd calendar!