Completed Farmer's Daughter Sampler Quilt

A few years ago, my father gave me a copy of his mother's 1916 daily diary, written the year she turned 21.  The diary is 402 pages long.  1916 was an eventful year for my grandmother.  She began dating the man who would become her husband (and my grandfather).  She learned how to drive, and she voted for the first time.  She wrote about all these events as well as the ordinary daily activities of a farmer daughter's life in Kansas.  More importantly, she wrote about these events in detail as well as her thoughts about them.  

My grandmother valued education and desperately wanted to attend college and become a writer.  She never went to college (but you can bet her 4 children and 15 grandchildren did).  However, she did write.  She wrote for her high school newspaper under the nom-de-plume "Would-be-witty."  She wrote long, long letters to friends and family.  And she wrote in diaries for much of her life.  When she passed away, her diaries were divided among her children and grandchildren.  The earliest diary I have is from 1912 when she was in high school.  The latest diary is from 1979 when she was 84.

I knew I wanted to do something with this diary, but what?  After much thought, I decided to create a quilt to go along with her diary.  Each appropriately-named quilt block would be paired with one or more diary entries.  Each blog post would include a photo of the quilt block as well as entries from my grandmother's diary.  I ended up with 140 blocks in my Farmer's Daughter Quilt.  I began the quilt in June of 2011 and completed the last stitch in December of 2012.  

People in more than 123 countries have visited my blog and read my grandmother's writing.  I think she would be pleased.  

This Whirlwind block is the center block.  My long-armer (and friend) did meandering on most of the quilt, so the large quilt (114" x 123") would not be too heavy.  But she did do custom quilting on some blocks, like this one.

The quilt is now on my bed.  If you'd like to see a full-length view of the quilt before being bound, click here:  http://starwoodquilter.blogspot.com/2012/12/farmers-daughter-quilt-before-binding.html 
  

Old Snowflake Quilt Block

This 12" Old Snowflake block is the tenth block of my Starwood Sampler Quilt that I made as a block of the month with my quilting group.  I created this quilt to tell the story of my home and community.  This pattern is found free on-line at: http://www.quilterscache.com/O/OldSnowflakeBlock.html.  It was first published by Nancy Cabot.

At our home, we receive anywhere from 100 - 150" of snowfall annually.  Typically, our snow is pretty dry; we get 1" of moisture for every foot of snow.  Our biggest and wettest snows come in the spring. 

I'm a reading teacher at an elementary school and love to read Snowflake Bentley with my students every year.  It's the true story of Wilson Bentley, one of the first known snowflake photographers.  He was born on February 9, 1865 in Jericho, Vermont and died on December 23, 1931 after being out in a blizzard, trying to photograph snowflakes.  Wilson photographed over 5,000 crystals in his lifetime.  Each year the Jericho Historical Society puts out a new pewter snowflake Christmas ornament designed from one of Wilson's crystal photographs.  I hang up my pewter snowflakes in my window, keeping them all winter long. 

Here's a fun recipe I've used with my students:

Borax Crystal Snowflake

For each snowflake, you will need:

1 white pipe cleaner

String

Wide-mouth pint jar

Boiling water

20 Mule Team Borax Laundry Booster

Pencil

1.  Cut a white pipe cleaner into 3 equal sections.  Twist the sections together in the center so that you have a six-sided star shape.  If your points are not even, trim the pipe cleaner sections to the same length.

2.  Attach string along the outer edges to form a snowflake pattern.  Attach a piece of string to the top of one of the pipe cleaners and tie the other end to a pencil.  (This is to hang it from.)

3.  Fill the wide-mouth jar with boiling water.  Mix borax into the water one tablespoon at a time.  Use 3 tablespoons of borax per cup of water.  Stir until dissolved.  (Don't worry if there is powder settling on the bottom of the jar.)

4.  Insert your pipe cleaner snowflake into the jar so that the pencil is resting on the lip of the jar and the snowflake is freely suspended in the borax solution.

5.  Wait overnight and by morning the snowflake will be covered with shiny crystals.

You might also enjoy seeing my other "snow" quilt blocks:
http://starwoodquilter.blogspot.com/2012/08/snow-churn-quilt-block.html 

http://starwoodquilter.blogspot.com/2011/08/snowball-quilt-block.html