I've posted before about how much I love finding unusual backing on my quilts. The most frequent is a sack that originally held feed, sugar, flour or salt.
They actually can be helpful when trying to figure out where a quilt may have been made. Often you need to be able to read backwards to figure it out!
Like this quilt that has a sack from a flour made in the western part of the U.S.A.
Sometimes it doesn't help at all...like the quilt that has Domino Sugar sacks for a backing. (This I didn't even notice until I washed the quilt!)
Domino Sugar was sold everywhere in the U.S. when this was made...fortunately I know who the maker is and where she lived! It is a S.C. quilt.
Imagine how excited I was to get a phone call from a fellow quilter telling me she has a box of old fabric bags that was looking for a home. Since she knows I love old textiles she called me first!
What a grab-bag! When most folks hear "feedsack" they think of the pretty bags sold in the 30's-40's here in the U.S. The bags were used to make everything from clothing to toys to curtains!
The bags I got were a bit different.
They were all muslin and had advertising printed on them.
Some were simple
Others were very detailed!
This Holly one is my favorite...not sure what I will do with them but they do make great study pieces of a time when quilters couldn't or wouldn't go to a fabric store and buy large pieces of fabric to back their quilts.
Could be that those Holly sugar sacks came from my home town in Colorado. We had a Holly Sugar beet refinery there...thousands of sacks were around there!
ReplyDeleteWhat a find. I love that saying "The Best Cooks Are Generous With Sugar". My, how times change! : )
ReplyDeleteThose sacks are a treasure! Love that first hexagon string quilt with the lines going all ways. Very fun.
ReplyDeleteWhat interesting feed sacks...I like the Holly one too! So pretty!
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