Feedsack Friendships
This quilt is a vintage one, picked up by my daughter’s friend at a local estate sale. Given she is newly graduated from college, I would guess she did not pay much. The quilt is from the 1940s, done in block format with two applique patterns – a flower and a butterfly - put on a 10” diamond. Interestingly, the shapes are not actually appliqued in place – instead, they were laid down, and, using a thick black thread, were machine stitched onto the background. Then the details – the body shape, wing outline and antennae were painted on with black ink!
My daughter asked if I could clean the quilt for her friend. The thing was so yellowed, I had to soak it overnight in the tub. The product I use is “Retro Clean” and it is a great way to clean vintage linens. Not all, mind you, as I have had things bleed as well as bleach out. But it was clear this quilt had been well loved and washed numerous times, so I was not too concerned with bleeding colors. Also, the quilt did not have any holes or damage, making it a sturdy choice for washing.
After the quilt enjoyed its over-night spa treatment, the water in the tub was literally pee-colored, and it needed a good rinse. I squeezed and twisted the quilt, then hoisted the soddened lump onto towels. At which point I rolled it up, burrito style. More squeezing, twisting and even standing on the towel burrito. Then off to the grass for a suntan, with a large clean sheet underneath. Within a few hours the quilt was only slightly damp. At which point I draped it over some lawn chairs for its final airing.
Now I was a bit verklempt regarding the binding. The original binding – the green fabric that goes all around the quilt’s edges – was completely shredded away along the top edge and parts of the sides. This make sense for a well-loved quilt. When a quilt is on a bed, the edge at the top is the one that gets handled - pulled on, bunched up, grabbed at. A “directional” quilt like this – where the images go only in one direction, makes it difficult to use the quilt on a bed in any other direction. Thus, one edge always gets the wear. Fresh binding will give the quilt a new lease on life. The trick was the fabric color.
For those of you unaware, colors are trendy. Different tones, styles and hues become popular, not only in the decorating and clothing industries, but also the fabric world. The greens you buy today are very different than those around even 10 years ago. In this case, the original green was a light mint green – think mint chocolate chip ice cream. Interestingly, the binding green was not used anywhere in the actual quilt top – one would think the “leaf” green of the flowers would have worked well. But most likely, this quilt was a bit of a “make due” work, and the fabric the quilter had the most of was the mint chocolate chip. Thankfully a nearby quilt shop – Sew N Save in Racine WI - had some options, and I landed on one, not mint green, but a nice shade that looked very 1940s.
I originally thought the quilt might have been a “friendship” quilt. In a friendship quilt, a group of women each make a block in the requested style. When the blocks were completed, the woman collected them, and began the process of creating the quilt. Mind you, this could take a year. It could even take 10 years. And, to be honest, I know quilters that have friendship blocks still in piles in their sewing rooms! Here, though, I suspect the pieces were all made by one woman, as a few of the fabrics are repeated, and the leaf green is always the same. More likely, friends donated scraps of bright fabrics to the woman, so she would have a nice variety for her butterflies and flowers. These fabrics are “feed sack” pieces from the 1940s.
A bit of history: starting in the 1840s, textile bags were used to sell food staples, such as bulk flour, sugar and animal feed. The original bags were course materials, and were reused as rags and towels. In 1910 better-quality fabric bags were introduced, and over time these bags became a source of fabric for clothing and quilts. The bag manufacturers soon realized women would request husbands “shop” for certain feeds based on the fabric they needed! There are numerous stories of feed stores having to move large piles of bagged staples so a certain fabric could be found. During the 1940s feed sack fabric became critical for many families due to the 1943 government restriction that ALL cotton fabric was for military use exclusively. With the exception that “commodity bags” were allowed. A feed sack basically was a 1 ½ yard piece of useable fabric, and women began to share and swap these fabrics. (1)
These butterflies and flowers are a testament to the ingenuity of women to create something lovely during a time of depravation. The bright, cherry colors offset the dark days of the Great Depression of the 1930s and the rationing years of the 1940s. The idea of a “quilting bee”, while viewed as a tad “old fashioned” and nostalgic by our modern era, was really one of support. The women helped each other, sharing patterns, fabrics, stories and often much needed friendship. The quilt my daughter’s friend found is a treasure of untold stories, friendships and the joy of adding sunshine to brighten a gloomy day.
(1) https://pieceworkmagazine.com/make-do-feed-sack-fashion-in-the-first-half-of-the-twentieth-century/
