Two weeks ago, Hallie researched vintage fabric online and then shopped at Pacific Fabrics in Seattle for quilting “quarter flats” typical of that era. She made a selection which she purchased and mailed to me as a starter on my vintage fat quarter collection. “I’m sure that some (or a lot) of them missed the target era . . . it gets tricky when you definitely weren’t alive anywhere near the time,” she wrote. “I still thought they were fun.” And she wants to know what others think about them. I’ve shown them to several people and scanned them so that you can see them.
In the first picture, the red which predominates is not one of the samples Hallie sent. When I was at Jo-Ann’s last week, I decided to look over the fat quarters and see if any spoke to my memory, and the result was this red swatch. Yes, said Rosemary, the red reminded her of a flour sack design. You know, she added, some students came to school wearing dresses made of the flour sack fabric. And Mary Ja
ne laughingly rejoined that “we knew who they were.” The other two florals in this set I immediately identified when I opened Hallie's packet as typical of what I remembered from the kitchen at the farm. Everyone seemed to agree on that, and Harriet said the top left reminded her of fabric at Bill’s mother’s house.
Everyone seemed to think the fabric designs were typical of the era in question. Harriet picked out the two "greenish" small prints on the left in this second photo and several more as typical. We spoke of several as reminding us of wallpaper, especially the blue in the
middle on the right.
In the first picture, the red which predominates is not one of the samples Hallie sent. When I was at Jo-Ann’s last week, I decided to look over the fat quarters and see if any spoke to my memory, and the result was this red swatch. Yes, said Rosemary, the red reminded her of a flour sack design. You know, she added, some students came to school wearing dresses made of the flour sack fabric. And Mary Ja
ne laughingly rejoined that “we knew who they were.” The other two florals in this set I immediately identified when I opened Hallie's packet as typical of what I remembered from the kitchen at the farm. Everyone seemed to agree on that, and Harriet said the top left reminded her of fabric at Bill’s mother’s house.Everyone seemed to think the fabric designs were typical of the era in question. Harriet picked out the two "greenish" small prints on the left in this second photo and several more as typical. We spoke of several as reminding us of wallpaper, especially the blue in the
middle on the right.Just because a design didn't spark a memory didn't mean it wasn't a vintage design. We agreed they seemed typical.
And lastly, I opened out and scanned the pattern we all knew was the 1950s but a fun print.
"What will you do with them?" was asked with some skepticism, as if to be sure I knew they didn't all belong on the same quilt just because they might represent the same general era. "This is just the beginning of my stash," I say. KW
4 comments:
I'm glad I didn't do too badly. :) That's fun to hear what they remind people of. I guess it was poor kids who wore flour sack patterns? What does that mean? Did flour actually come in fabric or would you sew your own flour sack to buy it in bulk?
Commodities such as flour, sugar, and feed came in sacks, and the thrifty housewife would use those to make clothes and other items for the home. When the commodities companies realized that the sacks were being re-used within the home, they used this as a ploy to get people to buy more sacks of product. It evidently worked for a very long time and children of the Depression era know more about this than I. My mother's favorite dishtowel was a flour sack, and I believe you can still find such towels as "floursacking." Yes, I think the flour sack fabric was more important to the poor, but that was a lot of folks during the Depression. And besides, people as a whole did a better job of recycling in those days.
"You should straighten the hem on this floursack and use it for a dishtowel," my mother said to me one day. But I discovered it was still an efficient dishtowel even with a crooked hem.
I read the history of flour sacks at quilthistory.com, where photos of vintage four sack prints are also seen. KW
I think that's a very clever way to recycle. The prints are pretty--I'll have to look at that site. Do you think different brands featured different patterns or was a variety offered? Was the brand name sewed onto the sack?
I am an inquisitive soul. I might have to do some research so that I don't annoy everyone.
I found more info on womenfolk.com/quilting. I'm not sure whether different brands featured different fabric patterns. If the cloth was to be used, it became important to the consumer to choose the sacks he wanted. Sounds like mixing and matching the fabrics became as important as the product! The sense I got from one of our friends was that country folk were more apt to use the sacks for apparel than city folk, and that would make sense because country folk used more sacks. For instance, a chicken farmer bought a lot of chicken feed in sacks, hence he might amass a lot of usable fabric. And if he had no use for it, he could either trade his sacks back to the store or perhaps sell them or share them. People would trade them in order to get the prints they wanted. This second website said that widespread use of the sacks began before the 1930s and continued a good while after and that commodities continued to be sold in sacks into the 1960s. As to the labels, originally they were stamped into the fabric and it sounded like removing that label was a chore and the process not always successful. But when producers realized how popular the sacks were becoming, they began gluing on paper labels that were easily removed. XO
Post a Comment