
Carson Phipps tries his hand at making a barn quilt which he’s watched his wife and class organizer Carole do many times.
Michael B. Hardison | Sampson Independent
The ever-growing love of barn quilt making in Sampson County added more creators to its ranks last weekend following fun at Grove Park Baptist Church during its inaugural barn quilting class.
The smell of paint, sounds of fans blowing, and laughter were in abundance Saturday as first time and amateur barn quilt artists filled the community center that morning. Across the room were tables upon tables of boards being prepped as paint brushes were flowing to craft beautiful barn quilts with designs of every kind.
Centered behind each of those tables were a small but passionate group of artists who came to participate in the class, all who said they fell in love with the art.
The initial class was taught by barn quilt enthusiast Deanna Shuman, owner of Deanna’s Delightful Barn Quilt Designs. She began her own barn quilt journey back in 2020 after a simple desire to bring a gift to a friend sparked her own love for the art, a career that eventually led her here to teach Grove Park’s first class.
“I’ll start with how I got kind of started,” she said. “I was an educator. I’ve been retired three years, and I just kind of wondered, what comes next? Georgia, my helper, and I were going to Arkansas to visit some friends, and I wanted to make and take them something but had no idea what.”
It was during that search that barn quilting found its way into Shuman’s life; she hasn’t looked back since.
“I stumbled across a barn quilt picture and that was the first time I’d ever seen one,”Shuman said. “At that time, I didn’t know what they were, so I did one and once I posted pictures, folks started asking, will you paint me one? Will you do one for me? That kind of thing, and I did a little bit before retirement, but when I retired, I decided to do classes. That has satisfied the teacher part of me. I do about two a month, and I still take orders from people privately.”
Teaching those classes is what brought Carole Phipps, one of the Grove Park members who helped organize the class, and Shuman together, a union that inspired the idea of bringing a class to Sampson County.
“Carole came to a class last year, early in the year, February or March, which was in Lumberton, and that was the first time we met,” Shuman recalled. “Since then, we’ve stayed in contact, and she has started painting her own barn quilts, but she wanted to host a class so I’m here helping her out.”
For Phipps’ part, creating barn quilts was something creative to do in her retirement years.
“I’m a groupie, but I’m also a retired educator,” Phipps added with a laugh. “I also wanted something to do after retirement and I love making barn quilts. “I’m a math person, so creating all these shapes for barn quilt designs makes me love it even more. Funny thing about all this is now people were calling me to paint for them so I’m going to be real busy until Christmas.”
Phipps wasn’t the only one who was loving the process of painting their very own barn quilts. The students of the class were equally overjoyed, even those who made one for the first time.
”This is the North Carolina star that I’m doing,” Jonathon Shattuck said. “Apparently each of the states has a different star quilt; I thought it was really neat. I’m a lover of history and I love North Carolina history, especially, that’s why I’m giving this a try. Is it going to be a lifetime pastime now, maybe so, this is my first time making one and I’ve enjoyed it.”
“I’ve never painted a barn quilt but we’ve always liked them going to the mountains and seeing them hang on barns,” noted Susan Dunn. “I see them more in the area recently and thought I would give making my own a go. I’ve always liked this design of a sunflower and decided that since we had the opportunity, I’d paint it.”
Another student, Denise Gore Edge, said she was familiar with barn quilts . This was, however, her first attempt at making her own and she instantly feel in love.
“I had them done before but I have never done one. I’m doing my first one now and I love it. I think this will become a regular occurrence,” she said. “I‘m enjoying it very much. This one is going in my backyard and I’m hanging this on my patio. I only used red, white and then green, so this was the one that I liked, and I thought it looked a little bit like Christmas which is coming up soon.”
Carson Phipps was also a first-timer who attended the class reluctantly, at first, to make his wife Carole Phipps happy.
“It has turned out better than I thought it would have,” he said with a chuckle. “The hardest part is what I’m doing now — taping; it just takes the longest, painting it is not an issue. Other than that, she’s done so many of them at the house and I’ve seen her do it so often, I kind of know how it works after watching what she does. I’ve never had to actually be the one to do it, so I’m learning as I’m going, but it’s turned out to be pretty enjoyable.”
For inquiring minds unsure of what barn quilt art is, visit www.southernliving.com, which describes it as, “A barn quilt takes the concept of a quilt square, just like one you would find on a cloth quilt in your home, and recreates it on plywood or composite aluminum. The square is then displayed on a barn or other structure for passersby to enjoy. Squares typically measure 4 ft by 4 ft or 8 ft by 8 ft, and the designs are mostly made of solid colors that compose a simple geometric pattern of squares, rectangles, and triangles. The idea is that the bold colors, size, and graphic features of the barn quilt can be seen at a distance when hung on their roadside canvases.”
Now that the first class has finished, and new barn quilt artists have discovered the love of the activity, Phipps said she’d like to make the classes recurring, but she doesn’t plan on teaching again anytime soon.
“I don’t know, it’s a long process so we’re going to have to see how bad these people are worn out afterwards,” she said. “I don’t intend on teaching classes, even though I was a teacher. So, if we have more I’ll call Deanna and say, Deanna, do you want to come to a class?”
To see the completed barn quilts from the class or to see more of Shuman’s working visit her Facebook at — www.facebook.com/p/Deannas-Delightful-Barn-Quilt-Designs-100070111776103/
Reach Michael B. Hardison at 910-249-4231. Follow us on Twitter at @SamsponInd, like us on Facebook, and check out our Instagram at @thesampsonindependent.