Featuring real-life letters from The Farmer's Wife magazine, Laurie Aaron Hird's new book commemorates the strength and hope of the farm women of the Great Depression. The 99-block queen-size sampler quilt inspired by these letters uses reproduction 1930s fabrics. For each block, instructions are provided for template piecing, and--where applicable--rotary cutting, so readers can piece the blocks based on their preferred technique.

Best-selling author Laurie Aaron Hird of The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt shares the next installment of this beloved series. A few years before Ada Melville Shaw's death in 1937, she wrote--and The Farmer's Wife magazine published--a seven-part series of articles about her homesteading adventures. It is this series of articles that come to life in The Farmer's Wife Homestead Medallion Quilt. Master of traditional quilting, Laurie Aaron Hird has used Ada's writings to inspire the 120 classic quilt blocks that surround a stunning center medallion. Full instructions for sewing this queen-sized sampler quilt, featuring 64 six-inch and 56 eight-inch blocks, are included. No CD-rom, no problem! The Farmer's Wife Homestead Medallion Quilt templates for paper-piecing and rotary cutting are provided in a ready-to-print, easy-to-download PDF. Travel back with Laurie and Ada to 1910s Montana where a homesteading pioneer woman inspired a contemporary quilt for the modern age.

Be Inspired by the Stories

The 1922, "The Farmer's Wife" magazine posed this question to their readers: "If you had a daughter of marriageable age, would you, in light of your own experience, have her marry a farmer?" The magazine at the time had 750,000 subscribers, and received over 7,000 letters. The best answers to this question are included in this book, along with the traditional quilt blocks they inspired.

Laurie Aaron Hird provides everything you need to be inspired and create your own sampler quilt:

• 111 six-inch quilt blocks, with assembly diagrams for piecing the blocks and template cutting directions
• Complete instruction for making a sampler quilt in any traditional size: lap, twin, queen or king
• CD with easy-to-print, full-sized templates for all 111 blocks, and printable quilt construction diagrams
• 42 letters from the 1922 Farmer's Wife contest to give you a priceless glimpse into our country's past

This book will include line art in sepia ink for 70 off-white pages to color inspired by blocks featured in the Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt Books. The geometric nature of patchwork quilt designs and blocks lend themselves perfectly to coloring book pages. The fabric line art has been rendered from actual vintage yardage. And, the blocks and quilt layouts could be worked up into actual quilts if you're so inclined.