Farmer's Daughter Quilt Block

     This Farmer's Daughter block is 10" square finished.  I got the pattern from The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt by Laurie Aaron Hird but changed the size.  Since the pattern is a 5 x 5 grid, it made the math so much easier for rotary cutting to make it 10" rather than 6".  I always make my half square triangles (HST's) larger and then cut them down to the correct size.  I'm happier with them that way.  A free, online pattern from The Quilter's Cache is available here. 
     To better understand my grandmother's life before her 1916 diary, I am including an excerpt from a story she wrote about her father in the 1940's.  Here she's describing her father and his land.

from A Kansas Yankee by Harriet Woodbury George -

"My father seemed to have a great urge to acquire land and more land.  He liked the expanse of the prairies, the long rows of corn in the fields, the ripening of oats and wheat, the big stacks of alfalfa and prairie hay.  And perhaps even more, he loved the cattle – especially the Herefords.  He had a rather small herd of purebreds, but he fed and marketed many fat steers and heifers that topped the Kansas City or Chicago markets. 

"Father’s first land purchase was made in 1881 when he bought 80 acres of new land on the Marais des Cygnes River from the Stevens Investment Company.  This land lay in Osage County (Kansas) where Turkey Creek enters the river.  It was in this area, in 1884, that my father bought a section, 640 acres of land, which had more than a mile of the Marais des Cygnes River running through it, which bordered the place he purchased first."



Wedding portrait of Fred H. Woodbury and Alberta Emily Young
July 29, 1885
They later became parents of 9 children, including my grandmother, Harriet Edith Woodbury.

from A Kansas Yankee by Harriet Woodbury George -

"As was the custom of that time, Papa is seated, with Mamma standing at his left, her right hand behind his shoulder.  She was a fairly tall, stately woman.  I remember her dark blue silk dress - three ruffles around the bottom of her skirt, draped portions about her hips, tight fitting basque waist, with trimming of white lace at her throat and wrists of her long sleeves.  She has dark brown hair, parted in the middle and pressed in deep scallops around her face.  Mother is standing before an artificial fireplace and mantel.  Dad is seated in a plush upholstered chair.  His shoes look like they had buttons."
               

You might enjoy reading my previous blog entry:
http://starwoodquilter.blogspot.com/2011/08/farmers-daughter-quilt-introduction.html