Wooden Barn quilts have become so popular on Pinterest at the moment, that I had to join in and have a try.  Like most projects I try, I always seem to jump in feet first.  Instead of trying a small basic design first, I jump straight in and made a kingsize headboard with a unique design.  Lucky for me it worked out great, but I had lots of pieces leftover.  I am now going back to basics and doing a wooden barn quilt wall hanging to use up all the pieces.

I was not familiar with where the idea of a wooden barn quilt came from, so I did a little research.  You may be really surprised to see that they started off as a painted design.  Donna Sue Groves wished to honour her mother, Maxine, and her Appalachian heritage by having a painted quilt hung on her barn in Adams County, Ohio. Full History 

I am not too sure who started making barn quilts up out of lots of small cuts of wood, but I totally love the idea. It looks like a difficult process, but it is very simple when you see it broken down into steps.  The headboard I made had been painted to suit my daughter’s decor, so this barn quilt was going to be stained with wood stain.

How to Make a Wooden Barn Quilt

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This project is perfect if you have lots of scraps of wood laying around.  I used plywood because my son is a builder, and he brings me all the scraps lying around after a job has been completed.  It does not matter if the plywood is bent because once it is cut into smaller pieces it is not noticeable. You do need to use the same thickness to get a nice finish though. For this project, I used 12 mm thick plywood. It is a good idea to sand the wood before for start cutting, rather than sanding all the small pieces. I used an orbital sander with 220 grit sandpaper.

Cutting the strips of plywood

To cut the strips of plywood I used a table saw and set the width to 50 mm. I ripped all the strips in one go to make sure they are all the same width.

Once you have cut the strips it is time to cut them into small shapes. You can have different lengths, but it is important to have all the angles the same, which is 45 degrees.  This step is very easy to do using a mitre saw. To get all the pieces the same size you can set up a stop block on your saw. A very important piece of information I learned by doing this is you need to add a spacer block between the cut and the stop block.  This is an extra piece of wood that can be removed before you make the cut. This will give the offcut somewhere to go instead of flying up, which can be a hazard.

Once you have all the pieces cut it is time to add them to the base.

Marking out the base

The base can be any size as long as it is a square.  Using a straight piece of wood mark out the board like the image below.  This is important to keep the design straight. Ignore the mess on the wood, because it is free and recycled it is not in the best shape.  But this does not affect the outcome.

Laying out the design

Start in the centre and make arrows with the first 2 pieces, then duplicate this for all the centrepieces.  We are not glueing at this stage, just working out the design that you want. The arrow shapes should fit in place along the lines.

This is where you can be creative by using different shapes, like triangles and squares.  Fit the pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle.  When you get to the outside pieces, they could end up overlapping the base, but not to worry these will be cut flush with the base at the end.

Staining the wood

Start in the middle staining the wood as you go along, this pattern is very basic, so it was easy to stain. You can keep moving the pieces around until you are happy with the design.

Gluing the barn quilt

I did a few tests on the best way to fix the pieces to the base, and a hot glue gun worked best.  But saying this I did use good quality glue sticks from the hardware store as opposed to the budget store brand. Using hot glue allows you to continue working without waiting for the glue to dry.  You can use a nail gun, but I found the nails were visible.

One thing I did notice about using plywood, was that the colour of the wood stain was not consistent.  I believe this was because I used multiple different pieces of plywood.  But I was still happy with the look. Once all the pieces were glued in place, I cut away the excess that was hanging over the edges using the drop saw.

Adding wood veneer tape

I was so happy with the look I decided not to build a frame, but I still needed to finish off the edges.  To do this I used wood veneer edging tape. It is so quick and easy to use which was great.

It is a good idea to use an old iron for this step because you could end up with adhesive on the iron. Place the tape on the edges and heat with a hot iron with no steam.  You can use a rag between the wood veneer and the iron. The iron will melt the adhesive and stick the tape to the edges.

Use a Stanley knife to remove the excess veneer.

To seal the barn quilt before going on my wall, I added 2 coats of satin spray polyurethane.  Please feel free to leave a comment or share this project.

This was my first wooden barn quilt which was very ambitious, and not without its problems which you can read about here. 

For more project ideas check out this really cute cold water auto feeder.  I made this for my dogs to keep their water bowl full and cool during the hot summer days.

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