The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt and Social History
The Farmer’s Wife Sampler Quilt: Letters from 1920s farm wives and the 111 blocks they inspired by Laurie Aaron Hird was in the pile of books and binders I pulled off my shelves for inspiration for my next creation.
As I was flipping through the designs (Who reads a quilt pattern book?) a picture of a woman with a blush in her cheeks and snow shoes on her back caught my eye. It was the cover of The Farmer’s Wife - A Magazine for Farm Women dated January 1922. Why was this in a quilting book? And so I began to read. The book is about the social history of 1920, specifically about farm women of 1922.
The magazine ran a contest asking if their subscribers, knowing what they did now, would want their daughters to marry a farmer. The book includes some of those answers along with quilt blocks.
If you like to quilt, the book includes a CD with templates of the pattern pieces. If you’ve quilted before, you’ll hate it. I balked at printing out 106 pieces of paper, each with a small pattern piece. Someone condensed it down to 15 pages, but you have to subscribe to download the file (free for the first 30 days). I have no intention of tracing piece after piece when I can cut faster and cleaner with a ruler.
So if you like to quilt, from time to time I’ll post information about the pieces. If you’re interested in social history, you’ll love hearing the thoughts of these women.
template 1 - 2.5 inch square
template 2 - use the template
template 3 - 2.5 inch square cut on the diagonal
template 4 - 2 inch square
template 5 - 3.5 inch square
template 6 - use the template
template 7 - 2 inch square cut on the diagonal
template 8 - 3.5 inch square cut on the diagonal
template 9 - 3.5 x 2 inch rectangle
template 10 - 8 x 1 inch rectangle (see template for special instructions)
template 10 - use template for applique piece
template 14 - 4.5 inch square
templates 12, 13, & 15 are triangles that can be cut on the square, but I’m not quite sure of the size. Still, I’ve given you enough to do blocks 1-4, 9, 11, 16, 21, 30, 34, 35, 41, 51,61, 62, 64. 71, 81, 84, 102, 103, and 107. That’s a pretty good start.