Introducing the Sweet Corn Star Barn Quilt

There is something especially beautiful about the colors of late summer, the deep green of the fields, the warm gold of ripening corn, and the creamy softness of dried husks turning in the sun. Those colors became the inspiration for our newest barn quilt design, the Sweet Corn Star.

When I first painted this pattern, I knew I wanted to use two of our warm Prairie Paint colors: Acorn Squash and Honeycomb. As the design came together, the golden shapes in the center began to look like sweet corn kernels nestled inside leafy green husks. What started as a traditional geometric star suddenly felt like a little celebration of the harvest.

And just like that, the Sweet Corn Star had its name.

A Star Inspired by the Field

Barn quilts have always carried the stories of home, family, farms, and the land. The Sweet Corn Star feels rooted in that tradition while offering a fresh interpretation of a classic quilt-star design.

Its golden center is surrounded by rich, earthy green and creamy white, creating the feeling of corn wrapped in its husk. The repeating geometry gives the design beautiful movement, while the warm harvest palette makes it feel timeless and welcoming.

It is a pattern that can live comfortably through the seasons. It is especially lovely for late summer and autumn, but its simple farmhouse colors make it beautiful all year long.

Hang it on a porch, in an entryway, above a garden bench, inside a kitchen, or on a favorite outbuilding. Wherever it is placed, the Sweet Corn Star brings a little of the countryside with it.

Painted in Prairie Paint Colors

The original Sweet Corn Star was hand-painted using Prairie Paint colors, including the golden warmth of Acorn Squash and Honeycomb.

These colors remind me of garden harvests, bowls of squash on the table, cornfields glowing in the evening light, and those first hints that summer is beginning to turn toward fall.

Of course, one of the joys of creating your own barn quilt is choosing a palette that tells your story. Follow the original harvest colors or give the design an entirely different personality using colors from your own home, garden, or family traditions.

Make Your Own Sweet Corn Star

The Sweet Corn Star is available in several ways, whether you would like to paint one yourself or enjoy a completed barn quilt.

The Sweet Corn Star Barn Quilt Pattern is available as an instant PDF download or as a full-color printed paper pattern. It includes the design layout, painting guide, and suggested Prairie Paint colors to help you create your own version.

For those who would like a more complete creative experience, the Sweet Corn Star Classic Barn Quilt Kit makes it easy to gather around the table, slow down, and enjoy the process of bringing the design to life.

The finished Sweet Corn Star Barn Quilt is also available for anyone who would love to add this warm, harvest-inspired piece to their home without painting it themselves.

A Little Piece of Harvest

The Sweet Corn Star reminds me that inspiration is often waiting in the most familiar places—in the garden, along a country road, or in the colors of a field we have passed a hundred times before.

This design celebrates those simple, beautiful things: golden corn, green husks, handmade traditions, and the feeling of bringing the harvest home.

I hope you love the Sweet Corn Star as much as I loved creating it.

Celebrate. Dream. Create.

Stories in every stitch and brushstroke.

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Introducing the Sweet Corn Star Barn Quilt

Meet Plum Pickin & Blue Belle: Two New Prairie Paint Colors

There is something especially lovely about adding new colors to the Prairie Paint collection. Each one begins with a feeling, a memory, or a glimpse of color found in the gardens, fields, and stories that inspire everything we create. Today, I’m so excited to introduce two beautiful new shades:

Plum Pickin and Blue Belle.

Plum Pickin is a rich, deep periwinkle purple with the warmth and character of a perfectly ripened summer plum. Its name was inspired by memories of my grandmother’s orchard, where plum trees grew alongside the apples. She gathered those beautiful fruits and turned them into homemade jams, sauces, and even plum wine.

It is earthy, nostalgic, and just a little unexpected, the kind of color that feels both old-fashioned and wonderfully fresh. Plum Pickin adds beautiful depth to floral designs, barn quilts, painted furniture, signs, and all the little creative projects that need a touch of something special.

Prairie Paint Plum Pickin

Blue Belle is a beautiful, timeworn blue inspired by the delicate blue flowers that bring such sweetness to a garden. It has a peaceful, welcoming quality that feels right at home in cottage, farmhouse, and prairie-inspired projects.

This lovely shade is soft enough to feel gentle, yet rich enough to make a statement. Pair it with creamy whites and greens for a quiet garden palette, or combine it with deeper colors for a bold and colorful barn quilt design.

Prairie Paint Blue Belle

Beautiful Apart and Even Better Together

Although Plum Pickin and Blue Belle each have their own personality, they are especially beautiful when used together. The rich purple of Plum Pickin gives Blue Belle depth, while Blue Belle brings a soft, peaceful balance to the pairing.

Try them with warm golds, botanical greens, faded pinks, and vintage creams to create a palette that feels as though it was gathered straight from an old farmhouse garden.

Both colors are making their debut in our new Blue Belle Blossom Barn Quilt, where their rich, garden-inspired tones come together in a design filled with color, warmth, and prairie charm.

I cannot wait to see what you create with Plum Pickin and Blue Belle. Whether you use them in a barn quilt, a floral painting, a well-loved piece of furniture, or a project all your own, I hope they inspire you to celebrate, dream, and create.

Plum Pickin and Blue Belle Prairie Paints are available now in the shop.

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Meet Plum Pickin & Blue Belle: Two New Prairie Paint Colors

Introducing the Prairie Compass

Some designs begin with a pattern. Others begin with a feeling.

The Prairie Compass was born from those quiet moments spent outdoors, walking through tall grasses, watching summer clouds drift over the mountains, and noticing how every season has its own palette. It isn't simply a star. It's a reminder that nature has always been our compass.

The warm ochres echo sunlit wheat fields ready for harvest. Mossy greens recall forest trails and hidden meadows. Weathered blues reflect mountain skies after a summer rain, while soft sage and earthy clay ground the design in the colors of the prairie itself.

These are the colors that have always called us home.

For generations, barn quilts have been symbols of craftsmanship, community, and welcome. Hanging proudly on barns, porches, and homesteads, they tell stories without saying a word. The Prairie Compass carries that same tradition while offering a fresh interpretation - one that feels equally at home on a farmhouse porch, a garden fence, or the walls of a cozy cottage.

What I love most about this design is its symbolism. A compass doesn't choose the journey for us. It simply reminds us where we are and helps us find our way when we need direction. In many ways, life is the same. We all have seasons of wandering, seasons of planting, and seasons of coming home to ourselves.

The Prairie Compass is a gentle reminder to stay rooted in what matters most while remaining open to wherever the next path may lead.

Every Prairie Compass is carefully hand painted using our signature Prairie Paint colors, allowing each brushstroke and every piece of wood to retain its own unique character. No two are exactly alike, and that's part of their story.

I hope when you hang one in your home or garden, it becomes more than décor. I hope it becomes a quiet reminder to slow down, look toward the horizon, and remember that home isn't always a place...sometimes it's simply the feeling of being exactly where you're meant to be.

Thank you for being part of this journey and for celebrating handmade craftsmanship with us.  The Prairie Compass will be arriving in the shop in the shop this week, and I can't wait to share it with you.

With gratitude,

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Introducing the Prairie Compass

Between the First Pencil Line and the Second Coat of Paint

Yesterday, I spent the day teaching a barn quilt workshop at Farm & Hive in Idaho.

The venue was beautiful. The tables were filled with paint, brushes, rulers, and boards waiting to become something more. One by one, the students arrived, each carrying their own supplies, stories, and a little uncertainty.

Many had never painted a barn quilt before.

As they settled into their seats, I heard the familiar phrases.

"I'm not very artistic."

"I hope I can do this."

"I've never painted anything like this before."

I always smile when I hear those words because after fifteen years of teaching creative workshops, I've learned something.

The people who say they aren't creative almost always surprise themselves

There is a moment in every class that I have come to love.

It happens somewhere between the first pencil lines and the second coat of paint.

At the beginning of the day, everyone is focused on their own project. Their own board. Their own mistakes. Their own worries about whether they are doing it right.

But somewhere along the way, something shifts.

A question is asked across the table.

Someone shares a paint color.

A story is told.

Laughter breaks out.

A neighbor helps hold a ruler.

Someone compliments another painter's design.

And before you know it, a room full of strangers begins to feel like a gathering of old friends.

The barn quilts become almost secondary.

What is really being created is connection.

I watched it happen yesterday.

Women who had never met before leaning over each other's boards, encouraging one another. Sharing stories about children, gardens, travels, dreams, and life. Celebrating each completed section as though it were their own.

By the end of the day, something remarkable had happened.

Every single person left with a beautiful barn quilt.

But they also left with something less tangible.

Confidence.

Not because they had mastered a new skill.

Because they had been willing to begin.

I think we often get that backward.

We wait for confidence before we start.

We tell ourselves we'll try the new thing when we know more, have more experience, or feel more ready.

But creativity has taught me the opposite.

Confidence rarely comes first.

Confidence comes from making the first pencil line.

The first brushstroke.

The first stitch.

The first attempt.

The first imperfect beginning.

Yesterday was a reminder that most beautiful things begin with people who aren't entirely sure they can do them.

A blank board.

A handful of paint.

A room full of beginners.

And the willingness to start.

By the end of the day, the boards were covered in color.

The painters were smiling.

And a room full of strangers felt a little more like a room full of friends.

Not a bad way to spend a Saturday.

Until next time,

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Between the First Pencil Line and the Second Coat of Paint

Mended Roads Barn Quilt

There are roads we choose, and roads that choose us.

Some are straight and certain. Others wind, turn, pause, and begin again. Over time, all of those paths become part of us—the easy miles, the unexpected detours, the places where we had to stop and mend, and the stretches that carried us somewhere beautiful.

Mended Roads was designed as a celebration of that journey.

This barn quilt pattern is made of movement, connection, and quiet strength. Each line feels like a pathway crossing another, coming together piece by piece to form something whole. What may look like separate roads at first begins to reveal a larger design—a reminder that our lives are often the same way.

We don’t always see the full pattern while we’re traveling it.

But later, when we look back, we can see how the roads met. How the detours mattered. How the broken places became part of the beauty. How every turn helped create the artwork of a life being lived.

Painted in the warm, folk-inspired colors of the Tweetle Dee studio, Mended Roads is a meaningful design for homes, barns, gardens, creative spaces, and any place where a little reminder of hope belongs.  It is now in the shop in four sizes.  Pattern coming soon!

May it remind you that no road is wasted.

Every path, every turn, every mended place can become part of something beautiful.

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Mended Roads Barn Quilt

The Old Pine and the Wild Strawberry

Last spring, I was walking near the water at the cottage when something caught my eye.  Growing from the top of an old pine stump was a wild strawberry plant.  Its leaves were bright green. Tiny white blossoms opened toward the sun. It looked completely at home there, as though it had always belonged.

I stopped and stood for a moment, surprised not by the strawberry, but by where it was growing.  The stump was all that remained of one of the old pines that once stood along the path to the pond.  When I was a little girl, those trees felt enormous.

I would run barefoot beneath them on summer mornings, racing toward the water without a thought in the world. The ground was soft with pine needles. The air smelled of sap and warm earth. The trees stood like quiet guardians along the shore, watching over generations of summers.

As children, we imagine that the places we love will always remain exactly as they are.  But time has other plans.  Storms come. Trees fall. Families change. People grow older. The landscape shifts in ways both large and small.  The pine tree that once towered above me is gone now.  And yet, there on its weathered stump, something new had taken root.

A wild strawberry.  It felt like a lesson from the land itself.  Not everything that appears finished is gone.  Sometimes life continues in forms we do not expect.

The old pine had become nourishment for something new. What once provided shade now provided a place for roots. What looked like an ending had quietly become the beginning of another story.   I have thought often about that strawberry plant since then. 

The wild strawberry has long been associated with sweetness, abundance, and the rewards that come from patient tending. It grows close to the earth. It does not seek attention. It simply flowers when the season is right and offers its fruit to those willing to notice.

Perhaps that is why it felt so meaningful to find it there.  Not because it was rare.  But because it was ordinary.  A small act of renewal taking place without announcement.  The older I become, the more I see that life works this way.

We inherit more than houses and photographs. We inherit stories. Values. Traditions. Ways of seeing the world. We carry pieces of those who came before us, often without realizing it.  The places that shape us continue to shape us long after we leave them.  And sometimes, if we are paying attention, they offer reminders.

A blossom growing from a stump.

A memory returning on a spring morning.

A quiet reassurance that roots remember.

As I stitched the Wilde Strawberry embroidery design, I found myself thinking about that old pine and all the summers it witnessed. The laughter. The fishing poles. The family gatherings. The barefoot paths worn into the grass by children running toward the water.

The tree is gone.

The childhood summers are gone too. But the story continues. Perhaps that is what the strawberry came to teach me.  That life is always renewing itself.  That beauty often appears in unexpected places.  And that what once nourished us continues to nourish us still. 

The old pine is gone.

But from its roots, sweetness remains.

I'm sharing the Wilde Strawberry Embroidery Kit and Pattern in our shop   for you to slow stitch your own vintage inspired wild berries.  Each of our kits include everything you need to stitch and enjoy.  

Celebrate, Dream & Create.

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The Old Pine and the Wild Strawberry

A Sandwich and A Chair

There is a phrase I’ve found myself returning to lately.

A sandwich and a chair.

Simple things.

Not grand gestures. Not complicated plans. Not fixing every problem or finding every answer. Just a sandwich and a chair.

A place at the table. A place to rest.

A reminder that someone thought to leave the light on for you.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve begun to suspect that much of what we call love looks a lot like this. Not fireworks, just simple hospitality.

A comfortable place to land when the road has been long.

This spring has been full of family.

We’ve been working on the cottage in New York - clearing rooms, making plans, dreaming about paint colors and wood floors, deciding what stays and what goes. There is still much to do, preparing rooms not lived in. But I’ve begun to wonder if much of life is exactly that.

Preparing rooms before we know who will walk through the door. Planting gardens before we see blossoms. Making beds before guests arrive. Creating a space for something we cannot yet see.

This past week, I had a dream about a woman I had never met.

She appeared as naturally as an old friend, she introduced herself by name. A first name I had not heard before, attached to a last name that was distantly familiar.

She looked like someone from the 1950’s…Her dark hair pinned back. Her paisley dress. The feeling of familiarity she carried. I asked my father if he knew someone by her name, and he did.

She had been a close friend of my grandmother many years ago. A woman who had shared meals, stories, and community with our family long before I arrived.

I spent days thinking about that and why she appeared in my dream to introduce herself, shake my hand and join a gathering at the lake.

I’ve wondered how many people helped prepare the rooms we now know?

How many hands planted trees whose shade they would never sit beneath?

How many women set tables, stitched quilts, hosted chicken dinners, built communities, carried stories, and held hope for futures they would never personally see?

Perhaps that is what ancestors do.

They prepare rooms.

And perhaps our job is not so different.

At Tweetle Dee, our motto has always been:

Celebrate. Dream. Create.

For years I thought of those as separate steps. Now I wonder if they are really one continuous circle.

Celebrate where you are.

Dream about what could be.

Create space for it to arrive.

Then begin again.

Celebrate.

Dream.

Create.

The cottage is teaching me this. Every board we repair. Every room we clear.

Every plan we make for a future visit. It is an act of faith.

Not because we know exactly what comes next. But because hope itself is a form of creation.

Life asks for patience.

It asks us to trust the work happening beneath the surface. To believe that clearing a room matters even when we don’t know who will occupy it. To trust that making a place welcoming has value even when we are still waiting.

In my dream my Dad was sitting in a chair, not speaking. Just smiling watching the activity with children at a bonfire, some on the dock watching the water and children coloring on the porch.

I told him that there would always be a sandwich and a comfortable chair waiting for him at the cottage.

I meant it literally. But I think I meant something more, too.

I think what I wanted him to know was this:

You belong here.

There is a place for you.

You do not have to earn your seat at the table.

And perhaps that is what all of us are longing to hear.

Perhaps that is what we are creating when we paint, garden, stitch, write, cook, build, and then love, extend forgiveness and patiently wait.

Just a sandwich and a chair.

A place where those we know and those we have not yet met, might someday arrive and find rest.

This week, I hope you take some time to celebrate.

I hope you make room for your dreams.

And I hope you continue creating the life that is quietly preparing itself around you.

The rooms you are tending today may become someone’s refuge tomorrow.

Including your own.

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A Sandwich and A Chair