Quilt Trails Galore

Quilt Barn Trails have been blanketing the countryside in the past few years.  To date, I believe 45 states and 3 Canadian provinces have quilt trails.  The movement began in southern Ohio in 2001 with Donna Sue Groves' idea to create an imaginary "clothesline" of quilts across Appalachia.  You can learn more about that here: Donna Sue's story.  Author Suzi Parron has collaborated with Donna Sue to document the movement in a book, Barn Quilts and the American Quilt Trail.  Clicking the link will take you to Suzi's blog, where you will find a link to purchase the book.  She is at the present time touring the United States, giving programs and doing research for a second book on the subject.
I joined the quilt trail movement in 2009 when a friend, Cindy Cambier and I started a trail in our home county of Osceola County, Michigan.  Osceola County has 92 quilt blocks on barns, garages, houses, businesses and public buildings. 
Now we have moved on to the two counties immediately to the north of Osceola, Wexford and Missaukee Counties, having started in 2014, the Quilt Trails of Wexford-Missaukee.  Our first block went up this week, a Snail Trail block went up on the historical octagonal building at the Wexford County Fairgrounds.

The grounds crew at the fairgrounds rounded up a few ladders, and with a lot of coaching from the bystanders, the deed was done.

 To quote Cindy's facebook post about this:  "A few years ago, when we were in Ohio for the national gathering of Quilt Trails, we proposed that every trail, in every state, replicate the Snail Trail quilt block in purple and lime in honor of Donna Sue Groves; many have done just that. Generally, we agree that we should not duplicate blocks on from other trails, but we love that this connects us all and honors DSG!"
Snail Trail was donated by our team to the fairgrounds, and we also donated one to the Missaukee Falmouth Youth Show, but they don't have it up yet.

It's been a busy week.  The next day we put up another block, this time on a barn.  The barn is located in a place where there used to be a village called Star City.  All that remains of it is the name of the road, and an old building which once was the Methodist Church.  Shelby Norman, owner of the block, is somewhat of a local historian, and she has named this block "Star City".

 Sometimes the biggest challenge is getting the block installed.  A local contractor loaned his equipment and aid in getting this 8' square beauty 20' up in the air.

The quilt trail is a volunteer movement.  None of us make any money doing this, but we get a lot of satisfaction out of seeing our artwork so prominently displayed, the wonderful people we get to work with, sharing the heritage of the families in our area, and bringing a small boost to the economy of the area through what is commonly referred to as "agri-tourism".  \
We don't have a website or dedicated blog yet, nor a trail guide/map, but those will be forthcoming as the trail grows.