An introduction to some musings on 1930s quilts and “feed sacks”
About 2 weeks ago, I innocently opened a newsletter from a favorite fabric store, Reproduction Fabrics. In it they mentioned Petra Prins new line of 1930s fabric. Around the same time, Petra Prins sent out a newsletter announcing a new quilt program using a pattern called It’s a Lot Quilt by Bec Brennan and her new 1930s inspired fabric line. Bec Brennan’s pattern reminds me of Jen Kingwell’s Longtime Gone quilt, which I have always loved.
What does all this mean? Suddenly I needed to plan a quilt and use 1930s inspired blocks and fabric. So, I started googling and acquired a few research materials.
After reading about feed sack fabrics, I decided I needed to see some in person. I set up a search in Ebay and bought a few examples. It is likely these are not actually from the 1930s, but, they at least give me an idea of the fabric quality. The fabric is sturdy, but slightly more open weave than what you would see from a finer quality cotton.
Buyer beware when you are trying to buy vintage “feed sacks” from Ebay or Etsy. Read the listings carefully. A lot of people are listing fabric that may or may not be feed sacks and may or may not be vintage. The most expensive prints on Ebay are the small-scale prints, but I was particularly interested in cheater fabrics and decided to stick to more budget-friendly larger scale prints.
You can see I also bought some hand-pieced lemoyne star blocks made from what does appear to be feed sack fabric (based on the weave, it is hard to know for sure of course).
This wraps up a quick intro to my goodies, I will follow up in subsequent blog posts with more on what I found in the books, and if I plan to do anything with these fabrics!
List of Resources
Cotton & Thrift: Feed Sacks and the Fabric of American Household by Marian Ann J. Montgomery
Feed Sacks: The Colourful History of a Frugal Fabric by Linzee Kull McCray
Patchwork Souvenirs of the 1933 World’s Fair by Merikay Waldvogel and Barbara Brackman
Soft Covers for Hard Times: Quiltmaking & the Great Depression by Merikay Waldvogel
The Kansas City Star Quilts Sampler: 60+ Blocks from 1928 to 1961 by Barbara Brackman