Exodus 28:5 These items must be made of fine linen cloth and embroidered with gold thread and blue, purple, and scarlet yarn.
Growing up on a potato farm, I learned to drive the “H” long before I learned to drive a car. I probably started driving the tractor when I was about eight years old. I wasn’t able to get a drivers license until I was maybe 15 years old.
A few years ago, actually quite a few years ago, I worked with a woman that came into the office one day and asked, “are you going to make a square for the Potato Blossom Festival anniversary quilt?”
I asked, “what are you talking about?” I hadn’t heard about this Potato Blossom Festival anniversary quilt and was quite intrigued by it. Suddenly my mind was flooded with ideas for different quilt squares with farming memories. She explained the details for this quilt, and it would be on display during the festival and then would be on display at the Statehouse.
When I got home from work I immediately sketched out some of the ideas that were in my mind for a quilt square to submit for this farming quilt. It ended up that I submitted four designs.
The first design was a potato plant in blossom. I was so pleased with how it came out, I started a second square.
This second square was a little more complex. It depicted a potato field with rows that had all ready been dug, were currently being dug and rows yet to be dug. It also had a hand hoe, potatoes, a potato basket and a potato barrel. The potato barrel had our logo, <C>, that farmers each used to identify their barrels on it.
The third square was how my potato house looked in my memory during summer months. The final square I submitted was my Farmall H. These two squares had a few different elements to them that I thought made them quite unique. For the potato house, I had a fabric that had lines in it that looked like it could be wood. My brain went into overdrive and I decided to create clapboards by folding several narrow strips on top of the other to be more like what the front of the potato house actually looked like.
The H was probably the most complex of the four squares. I used red denim for the tractor, two different fabrics for the background to represent the rows of potatoes in the field and the headland; and several details on the tractor itself. The tractor had a muffler, steering wheel, stick shift, throttle, wheel weights and headlights. I also used my embroidery alphabet feature to write ‘Farmall’ on the tractor.
Those of us that submitted the squares for the 50th Anniversary of the Maine Potato Blossom Festival quilt were invited to have tea with the Governor at the Statehouse. The quilt was displayed and I am pictured here with the lady that put the quilt together.
Deuteronomy 28:6 You will be blessed wherever you go, both in coming and going.
It is my understanding that the Maine Potato Blossom Festival anniversary quilt is still displayed during the Potato Blossom Festival the third week of July. One year it was displayed at the library, a couple of years it was displayed at the Blockhouse and I’ve heard it’s also been displayed at Festival headquarters. I don’t know where that is, but I expect it’s downtown somewhere where you can pick up schedules of activities taking place during the Festival.
The Nose Bump 
Why do you call your tractor the “H?”
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This particular model tractor is called ‘The H’ because of the gears are in the shape of an H.
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