Lovers of Shawano County’s barn quilts will be able to get their fill and more with a new book that came out last week.
The book, put together by Jim Leuenberger, barn quilt project coordinator, features the first 222 barn quilts, started in 2010. Although it a small book with basic information about the quilts, it is the start of what Leuenberger hopes will be a larger, coffee table book showcasing the barn quilts.
“The reason we got started on doing a book was because we already had three bus tours,” Leuenberger said, noting that each tour had a booklet on the quilts they would see. “Then we thought why go to all that work to produce a book each time for only the quilts they’re going to see? It was a lot of work, so we decided to put together a book of all of them.”
There have also been a lot of requests by people to see a book with the barn quilts, he said.
The book, titled “Shawano County Barn Quilts: 2010-2013,” contains basic information on where the quilt is, who owns the farm, who sponsored the quilt and when it was installed, as well as a photo of the quilt. There is also an introduction that describes how the project started and the process for making a barn quilt.
The book is being sold for $10 at several businesses around Shawano, although Leuenberger is hoping to establish countywide distribution. Proceeds go back into the barn quilt project; each quilt costs about $200 to create, paint and install.
As for the future book, which Leuenberger said he hoped to get to when there was a lull in barn quilt requests, there would be more history about the farms. They would be similar to the articles that appear in The Shawano Leader, Leuenberger said.
“We’d be able to have pictures of the people with their quilts. There would be some more creative photography,” Leuenberger said.
The book goes through the 222nd quilt because that was the last one that had been installed once the book work was completed. While Leuenberger could have stopped the book at a round number such as 200, he thought it was best to put them all in.
“There’s no magical formula or reason for it,” he said.
Including requests for future quilts, the project has grown to 240 barn quilts. Leuenberger noted the requests have slowed but not completely stopped.
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