More than just a pattern for a quilt, this book is a collection of thank you letters and photos from children who won ponies by selling subscriptions to The Farmer’s Wife magazine in the early 1900′s.   Laura Hird selected 90 letters from the lucky pony winners and chose blocks inspired by the stories and photos.  The sampler quilt consists of 90 traditional 8″ blocks to make a large queen sized quilt.   Though the blocks are traditional, many of them will be blocks you don’t see used over and over.

As Laura states, “these endearing, poignant, and sometimes hilarious letters provide a unique window into the lives of children in rural America at the turn of the 20th century”.   

Following the letters is a section with complete, detailed assembly instructions and illustrations for each block.

  The book includes a CD with templates, foundation patterns where needed, and full sized line drawings of each block.  There are assembly diagrams for not only the queen size, but also king, lap and twin. 

Sampler quilts are always interesting to make and this one is even more so.   Just two blocks a week and you’ll be finished this time next year even if you take a few weeks off.   The Pony Club Sampler Quilt would make a great project for a quilt guild and would provide for interesting conversation.

You may want to join the Yahoo group “The Farmer’s Wife Pony Club Quilt“.   There you can chat with other quilters about your progress, post pics of your finished blocks, and view pics of other members’ work.

Laura Hird has been collecting copies of the Farmer’s Wife magazine and has one of the most complete collections in existence.  You can follow her blog, The Farmer’s Wife Quilt, where she posts excerpts from the magazines, and discusses upcoming projects.

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