My Farmer's Daughter Quilt



My paternal grandmother, Harriet Edith Woodbury George, was a prolific writer all of her life.  A few years ago, my father gave me a copy of her 402-page daily diary for 1916, the year she turned twenty-one years old. 

For some time, I have wanted to create a quilt to accompany this amazingly detailed diary.  My plan is to make a traditional quilt block to accompany one to three diary entries.  I will research to find a block whose name matches the content of those particular entries.  I plan to end up with 140 quilt blocks in all. 

Blog posts two through thirteen will include excerpts from a story my grandmother wrote in the 1940's about her father, called A Kansas Yankee: The Story of Fred H. Woodbury.  This story will provide some useful background information and details not found in her diary.  The remainder of my blog posts will include daily excerpts from my grandmother's 1916 diary.  

My blocks will range in size from 6" to 12".  When I began my first quilt at age thirteen, I cut out each piece individually around a sandpaper template!  I am, therefore, a big fan of the rotary cutter, so will make my blocks using this tool whenever possible.  I am not opposed to paper piecing and templates but will use them only if necessary.  If it makes better math sense to make a block 8" or 10" square rather than 6", I am going to do that.

My quilt is going to be made from my scraps.  My older scraps are very traditional fabrics, and my newer scraps are modern fabrics.  I think of myself as a blend of both the traditional and the modern quiltmaker.

I am a farmer's granddaughter making a Farmer's Daughter Sampler Quilt about my grandmother in the year before she became a farmer's wife.

If you'd like to read every post about this quilt, please click on "Farmer's Daughter Sampler Quilt" under Labels on my blog.