Quilt QuestSubscriber Exclusive

At 1:30 p.m. on a sunny Friday, I set out with a friend to drive the entire Clark County’s Barn Quilt Trail. I started in Washougal, the southeastern end of the trail. There’s a barn quilt on a house just a few blocks from where I live. I’d walked by the house dozens of times and never even noticed it, but there it was, plain as day.

We followed the trail into Vancouver, where we saw many small barn quilts on typical suburban houses. Most were either 1 or 2 feet square and placed over garages. A couple houses were being repainted or remodeled, obscuring the quilts. However, every time we spied a quilt, it made us want to see more and bigger quilts. I longed for wide-open country roads, rolling hills and weathered old barns with huge, 8-by-8-foot designs.