Playing Barn Quilt Hide and Seek

 Shawano County is the Barn Quilt Capitol of Wisconsin. Barn quilts are painted squares on barns to look like quilts. They help preserve the old barns of Shawano County, promote tourism in Shawano County, and create an opportunity for a 4-H service projects. They also make the drive through Shawano County more enjoyable as you try to find and point out the quilts.

There is an actual Shawano Barn Quilt book that provides maps and information about the quilt. You can also find a list of all the barn quilts on the Shawano Barn Quilt website. Now I did not do any research about where the barn quilts were located. I prefer the find them as we drive by method.

As Heather and I were driving through Shawano County on our library road I started looking for barn quilts. Once I explained what I was doing, she would help and when we spotted one she would slow down to let me take a picture. We did find several quilts around the Shawano area on our way back to Appleton.

Once we started we could not stop. We found barn quilts in Waupaca County.

We even found some in Kewaunee and Door Counties. Because of the Scandinavian heritage, they prefer a star pattern or just a metal star. 

I will continue to play barn quilt hide and seek on road trips. Iowa and Kansas has many barn quilts which is what inspired the Shawano County barn quilts. Maybe one day I will take a road trip and see all 400+ barn quilts of Shawano County.