Thursday's Internet Edition, September 02, 2010.

PATCH 21st Century employees (from left) Morgan Cottrell, Racheal Fetty and Michelle Randolph show off plywood squares that will become part of the local barn quilt project. Photo by Jim Cooper

The college students – Morgan Cottrell, Racheal Fetty and Michelle Randolph – are summer PATCH employees. They help get things started and pretty much let the kids do the rest.

“We get the materials out and get the paint out and stir it up,” Randolph said. “The kids pick the colors. Sometimes they paint their shirts instead of the boards and we touch things up to make sure the lines are straight.”

The local quilt barn project is the brainchild of Nancy Stoepker, a Grannies Creek resident. Stoepker got the idea after seeing a quilt barn trail in Kentucky in 2008 and learning that the woman who started the National Quilt Barn Trail, Donna Sue Groves of Adams County, Ohio, had ties to this area. Groves’ mother, Nina Maxine Green Groves, was a 1943 Walton High graduate and accomplished quilter.

Stoepker was determined to start a local quilt trail, and was able to enlist donations as well as the support of county officials who see the effort for its tourism potential.

Starting along W.Va. 36 in the southern part of the county, there are now more than 40 squares on barns and other structures. Residents request squares by calling the WVU Extension office at 304-927-0975. There is no charge.

More and more people are interested in becoming “barn hosts,” creating a need for more squares. Senior citizen and other groups have helped in the past, and the younger set has joined the quilting party this summer.

The PATCH class “Barn Quilts” is one of many of wide-ranging interests offered free of charge during the summer, meeting each Wednesday morning. It includes Emily Chandler, Allie Kendall, Adena King, Sara Moore, Arabella Tallman and Gabrielle Williams.

Randolph said she chooses designs from a book entitled “1001 Patchwork Designs,” although the painters have the final decision.

“The kids will say, ‘Oh, I want to do that one,’” she said.

The 4-by-4-foot sheets of plywood are painted with exterior enamel and then coated with polyurethane. The kids will have finished off about a dozen colorful squares – with patterns like Grandmother’s Fan, Nine Patch, Flower Garden, Card Stack and Pinwheel – by the time the class wraps up this week.

In addition, each kid will be able to take a smaller quilt square of their own design home for display on a mailbox post or other likely spot.

The idea is for out-of-towners to visit the county for a driving tour of decorated barns, spending some money for gas and at restaurants and other establishments.

Tourists won’t be the only ones who appreciate the modern nod to the county’s past tacked onto the sides of barns. At least a half-dozen kids will no doubt beam with pride as they gaze upon their colorful creations.

“Hopefully, it will be neat for them to see them out in the county,” Fetty said. “They’ll have that connection to the barn quilt project.”