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Aunt Norie’s Sewing Room

By Eleanor Mckee - | Nov 16, 2005

As promised, here’s more on feed sacks.

One reader said: “Don’t use my name, please. Do I ever remember those feed sacks. It took such a long time to collect enough for some of my projects. Mom and I fussed about it until Dad finally made a bin with a lid on it to just empty the sacks as soon as we brought them home. Too many of them had gotten a hole chewed into them before they were empty — those little mouse critters in the barn!”

She also remembers when the feed sacks first began. “They changed from those heavy canvas-like material or the rough brown gunny sacks, so the nice cloth printed bags were a real event,” she said.

In addition, she remembers it took five sacks, one cut in half, to make a sheet for the bed. Two bags alike made a pair of pillowcases.

Her mother made card table covers and napkins from them. She usually just pulled the threads out on the edges making a fringe instead of a hem. That all-cotton cloth made the most absorbent napkins. Her Ladies Aid club had teas and bridge card games using those sets. They also made great gifts.

Her mother always bought 200 baby chicks in the spring then we got feed sacks quickly. Her father had to take us girls and mom to pick out those sacks.

“We girls at school had fun trying to get bags that were alike,” she said.

Thanks so very much for sharing those ideas. I, too, remember those feed sacks. I grew up on a farm west of Holton and Mayetta.

Spread those hug around now, and listen to all of that excited after-school chatter.

— Aunt Norie, P.O. Box 265, Tonganoxie 66086; auntnorie@bdc.net.