cook stove roared in the center of the room, keeping
it cozy and warm and smelling like cinnamon and
chess pie and bread rising. Near the woodstove, in
the tall pantry, there was a drawer full of soft clean
folded aprons and bonnets made from feed sacks.
She had dish towels made from flour sacks, too, and
quilts made from scraps of just about any fabric.
I bet she had dresses and children’s clothes made
from feed sacks, too, though I never recognized
them as such. She and others who lived through
the depression were geniuses at reusing the items at
hand.
Feed Sacks:
Retro Chic
What was once a practical answer for the family
budget is now a highly sought-after collectible.
Becky Crabtree
If I squint and think hard I can retrieve
dreamlike memories of my Grandmother Hatcher’s
kitchen. She and Grandfather lived on the Old BluefieldPrinceton Road in a little house surrounded by fruit trees,
cows, chickens, and big fields of corn. Calendars were
layered on one nail on the kitchen wall with spidery
inked notes showing the morning temperature and
number of eggs gathered each day. The white enamel
24 West Virginia Farm Bureau News
Early on, brand names and logos were part
of the feed sack fabric and were used for seldom
seen items like underwear. A joke of the era tells
about the young lady who was embarrassed at the
laughter when the wind exposed her “Southern
Best” bloomers at a church outing. The wife who
made her husband’s underwear with “Self-Rising”
flour sacks had a sense of humor, too. Later on, the
feed and flour companies used water-soluble ink to
print their brand names on the fabric sacks allowing
it to disappear when the material was washed. A
little later, paper labels were sewn in the seams of
the sacks and could be ripped off so as to leave the
cloth unflawed. I wish corporate America today had
such sensitivity to consumer needs and recycling.
Decades later, our flour sacks are made of all
paper and sacks of feed for pets and livestock aren’t
cotton fabric, having been replaced by durable crinkly
plastic. I have used them as garbage bags, tarps, as
waterproof containers of firewood for camping trips, and
for drippy boot mats at the back door. My favorite use,
however, is as repurposed tote bags for groceries. There
are several instructional websites available, but here are
my simplified directions.
Needed: Feed sack, any size; sewing machine with
thread; scissors; ruler; straight edge (yardstick works
well); marker.
Open the bottom of the sack by removing the
reinforced strip and string. I can’t tell you how many
times