Tour Barn Quilts During The

Chapman Labor Day Celebration

By Lori Hambright

   Join Chapman on Labor Day weekend – especially on Monday, September 7^th, for their 100-plus-year celebration.  Not only is it a homecoming for families in the area, but it’s the ‘last hurrah’ of summertime fun for the year.

   Chapman shares its weekend also with the long-running Friday & Saturday Longford Rodeo events and there’s time to take it all in and still be close to home.

   A special new feature to Chapman  Labor Day this year is the city of Chapman being declared a “Barn Quilt Cit.”

Just in town one can see nearly 70 barn quilts.

   Self-guided barn quilt walking and driving tours will be a highlight of the many activities in Chapman.  Maps will be available after September 1^st at area businesses, on the Chapman EDC facebook page and at the www.ksflinthillsquilttrail.com site.  (MAP BROCHURE BELOW)

   Labor Day Monday has special features if one chooses to tour then.  Do the tour routes and get a free scoop of ice cream.  Deanna Munson of Munson Homemade Ice Cream will be in downtown Chapman.  Show her your map, name your favorite barn quilt and receive a free scoop of ice cream.  And/or visit the Lucky Charm Quilt Shop in downtown (see their five barn quilts on their storefront), and see the barn quilt display inside while shopping their big Labor Day sales. Don’t stop here.  You can win a barn quilt!  The Class of ’77 Car Show is selling raffle tickets on a patriotic 2 x 2.  The car show is fast becoming “one to go to” of classic autos.

   But wait!  Visit the Quilt Show (all local-made fabric quilts) in the Methodist Church hall.  There’s more! But get it done and then enjoy the 2:00 p. m. parade, “The Trail…Our Heritage.”  The theme is honoring the Butterfield Overland Despatch stage line and Smoky Hill Trail on it’s 150^th anniversary in 2015.  The BOD/Smoky Hill Trail segment at Chapman was recently named to the National Historic Register in July. You can walk the BOD swales (ruts) on the west side of Indian Hill (Old 40 hwy & Quail Road) and also see a ‘wagon tracks’ barn quilt by the sign.

   The popularity of barn quilts in and around the Chapman area has been due to the activity of Dickinson County as part of the Kansas Flint Hills Quilt Trail and many barn quilt painting classes; also the Chapman Barn Quilt project directed by DK Co/KSFHQT, Chapman High School Art Club and the Chapman EDC which was conducted this spring and early summer.  Profits from the community project benefitted the CHS Art Club.

   To learn more about the Barn Quilt movement in the 22-county area of the Kansas Flint Hills, visit:  www.ksflinthillsquilttrail.com.

   See you Labor Day in Chapman!