The Patchwork Trail of the Foothills has been busy in recent months putting the finishing touches on some winter projects.

More than 20 barn quilts have been hung with the assistance of the South Kentucky RECC after the spring storms kept them busy with power lines and downed trees.

4-H Program Assistant Linda Bell has been working on a new batch of quilts and this time she has enlisted the help of the Clinton County High School Art Department.

“It has been a great project for these kids,” Art teacher Pam Tucker said. “We need this kind of community involvement for our curriculum.”

Other than getting the art experience by drawing and painting the quilts, they are also getting a history lesson as well.

“They didn’t know about the history of the barn quilt. During the Civil War times, these quilts were used to let people know this was a friendly home or plantation,” Tucker said. “They have truly enjoyed this project.”

One student at Clinton County High School has taken the project a step farther and designed his own quilt pattern. Brett Sheperd is in the process of finishing his design on paper so that it will become a design on a barn in Clinton County.

“Brett is designing an Amish quilt pattern, based on a real quilt, for a member of the Clinton County community,” Bell said. “He is hand drawing this one on and when it’s done it will be hung on a barn.”

Allowing art students to participate in the barn quilt project is giving students the diversity they need in each class. It provides an artistic touch as well as provides a history lesson.

“We are doing Program Review is what it’s called,” Gina Poore, Program Review Chairperson. “It incorporates arts and humanities, career studies and writing. I know Ms. Tucker has been very excited because the kids are enthusiastic. Pam is one of these people who just takes the ball and runs with it.”

Poore said the students are not the only ones learning something about barn quilts. It has been a learning experience for her as well.

“I even learned something yesterday because she was talking about the underground railroad and how the quilts would be identification if this was a safe house or not,” Poore said. “It’s a great learning process and she is weaving in other content within her discipline and that’s what Program Review is about … cross curricular. In the past, those elective classes are so isolated. Program Review calls for that to be much more of a integration across the curriculum. She is bringing in the community involvement.”

Poore also said the art class is planning a field trip after these quilts they are working on areplaced on the barns.

“They are going to go out to the site of the locations where they will put the quilts up,” Poore said “The kids are going to get to participate in that. It will show that they are involved from the very beginning to the very end.”

The Patchwork Trail of the Foothills was established in 2010 as a means of honoring quilting, farming, and other family traditions as well as promoting tourism.

In Clinton County, 20 barn quilts have been painted and displayed to date. More than 15 additional barn quits will be added in 2012.

On September 2, 2010, the Patchwork of the Foothills put up its first quilts. More than a year later, Bell is still working on adding more to local barns and building in Clinton County.

The Patchwork of the Foothills is working through the Clinton County Extension Office. Bell, along with Christy Nuetzman, Clinton County Extension Agent for Family and Consumer Sciences, has been overwhelmed at the response to putting the quilts on people’s barns.

The purpose of putting these quilts together and distributing them throughout the county is to promote tourism. All across the state, different counties are involved in locating quilts on barns and drawing up maps of each one’s location … kind of like a guided tour of barn quilts.

In order to get on the list for a barn quilt, people need to call the extension office and express an interest and ask to be put on the list.

As the Patchwork Trail of the Foothills is established, the extension office will construct a map of all the quilts in the county and people can drive to see all the different quilts that are on display at various locations.

Although this is a non-profit projects, there is a cost to getting your own quilt, in order to pay for supplies.

For more information about the Patchwork of the Foothills, call Nuetzman or Bell at 387-5404.