Barn Door Paws

Finished community quilt, shared by Rowan Mercer, 5 September 2026

by Rowan Mercer

Barn Door Paws by Rowan Mercer is a finished quilt in the Quiltler community: 68" × 82" (about a twin quilt), 1290 blocks, 1290 pieces and 3 fabrics on a straight grid, plus sashing and a border, shared 5 September 2026.

Barn Door Paws quilt by Rowan Mercer

At a glance

Finished size
68" × 82" (about a twin quilt)
Blocks
1290
Pieces
1290
Fabrics
3
Sashing
Yes
Border
Yes

About this quilt

Barn Door Paws is a Bear Paw throw in Barn Red and Cornflower on Buttermilk, finished at 78 × 92 inches, with thirty twelve-inch blocks set five across and six down and two-inch buttermilk sashing between them. Each Bear Paw block is four paws around a buttermilk cross: a paw is a big barn-red square with four cornflower claws along two sides, each claw a half square triangle, and a small buttermilk square at the corner. That comes to 1,290 pieces across the quilt, most of them claws, so the pattern is written to make the claws in bulk from paired squares before any block is assembled. Press the claw seams toward the cornflower so the blue reads sharp against the cream, and keep the paws turned the same way in every block so the red squares count across the grid in a clear rhythm. The sashing gives each block room, which is what keeps this many points from feeling busy. A Buttercup inner border and an ink-black outer border finish it with a clean primary edge. It suits a confident piecer who likes a traditional block at a size that fills a bed, and who wants to see red, blue and yellow carry a whole top. The download has yardage for all five fabrics, a cutting chart, the claw method, the block assembly and a printable layout.

Make this quilt your own

Open the Barn Door Paws quilt in the Quiltler studio — free in your browser, or on iPhone and iPad — to recolour it, swap in your own fabrics, resize it and calculate exact fabric requirements. When it looks the way you want, download the full quilt template of your version, with the fabric list and cutting sizes worked out for you.

Open Barn Door Paws in the studio · Browse more community quilts

Tags

  • traditional
  • folk
  • bear paw
  • throw
  • red
  • blue
  • graphic
  • primary
  • scrappy
  • block-based