Spool Quilt Block

     I changed the pattern a bit because I wanted some thread on my spool!  I had seen others use a stripe to imitate thread so wanted to do that.
     I have included another diary entry of my grandmother's.  Ted is her younger brother, who's 14 years old.  Nora is a hired girl who helps with the cooking and housework.

Thursday, January 13, 1916 -
"Ted tells me it's twenty-three and one-third minutes until eleven, so it is high time I was in slumber.  We didn't get up until rather late this morning, but it seems like it has been a dreadfully long day.  If it would only warm up a little so I could at least stick my nose out the door, maybe I wouldn't think the days were so long.  It was 15 degrees below this A.M., and the temperature has hung around zero all day.  It is hard to keep the house comfortably warm, but I had a very welcome job this A.M. - ironing the table linens.

"This afternoon I sewed - finished my blue gown.  As Mother wasn't feeling well, I got supper (with Nora's assistance).  Papa and Mother and I have been sitting around the grate fire talking; we discussed everything from fashion plates to quitting the farm."

I also wanted to include the story of when my grandmother received her gold thimble.  Her father would travel on the train with his cattle or hogs when he shipped them to Kansas City or Chicago.  He often shopped for his family in these big cities.  Can you imagine your father being the one to choose your clothes and fabric?

from A Kansas Yankee by Harriet Woodbury George -

"We children and Mother, too, were always delighted when Dad would select clothes for us, when he shipped stock to Kansas City or Chicago.  He more often bought lovely yard goods for our dresses and jackets, and sometimes ready-made coats of good style and quality.  And, always, some good food from wholesale houses in large quantities for our large family and the hired men we had at our table - one hundred pounds each of sugar, flour and beans, wooden boxes of dried fruits, etc.  When he was shipping to Chicago, we usually asked him to buy something 'special' for us girls - in the jewelry line, perhaps!  I remember silver thimbles he brought for the older girls when each were twelve years old.  One time when I was a little past twelve and had no silver thimble as yet, I reminded him.  The others gave their choices of a ring, a bracelet, a necklace, a watch.  When he gave me my thimble, it was a gold one.  Was I ever so proud!"

You might enjoy my previous post:
http://starwoodquilter.blogspot.com/2011/08/snowball-quilt-block.html