The Old Stuff...

With all the wonderful and wonderfully expensive fabrics that are available today, I continue to be in love with these scraps of "low end" feedsack prints of yesteryear.

Came across these two in my cleaning and sorting. The sacks are so coarsely woven it amazes me how clear and sharp the printed images are and remain.

My mother in law was a farmer wife. She made nighties for the girls, pajamas bottoms for the boys, aprons, dishtowels, curtains and more from the feedsacks that had contained both calf starter, chicken mash, and cow feed. She would ride along to the feed mill just to pick out what sacks she wanted, often getting several of the same print. That way she had enough of one for a skirt or blouse.

I have old pieces my mother in law had made into curtains I use them now for almost lint free cleaning rags. The burros and serapes on the fabric, altho faded and thin, are clear and sharp. Was it that the quality of cotton was higher..a better grade? Any chemical process they might have used would be so "low tech" compared to todays processing...makes me wonder