Vintage Feedsack Sunday Stash - Show and Tell!

A few years ago I was obsessed with authentic vintage feedsacks, and with buying them on ebay. After making the GFG with one inch hexagons, I was done with feedsacks. I haven't opened this box in four years! But I will open it today for show and tell.


So here's some of the loot, all carefully stored in what occurs to me now are tolulene off-gassing plastic bags and box, sealed to create harmful micro-environments. Sorry, my museum conservation training slipped in there for a moment!


I've got lots of stuff! In the lower left is a feedsack dress that I bought that was never finished. I REALLY want to wear it, in fact I would wear vintage dresses every day, but alas, I don't know how to make clothes. I will ask my mom to help me when she comes. There are a few stacks of large pieces, then bags of six inch squares and bags of piles of 4 inchers. Of course I have no real plan for any of these, though I saw a quilt by Darlene Zimmerman once that was a simple square pattern sashed with "that 30's green" that I want to make. Also, this one by Darlene is in my future.


Here are some of the "novelty" print squares I have. I have some that are considered very rare, so I was pretty proud. Click to enlarge.

Now these guys are another story! I bought these on ebay precut. They came in a box that clearly had been sealed since the 1940's. This is how I found them, carefully bundled and tied with red thread. Then I made a classic mistake. They smelled like moth balls so I thought, I'll just give them a nice swim in the sink with some Tide and then dry them in the dryer. Yeah....not so much. As you may imagine, they frayed like crazy and I ended up having to individually iron them when I was done! There must be 1200 of them. Although, I have to admit that I did love looking at each one of them individually as I re-piled them. I LOVE tiny pieces of fabric. Just love anything close up or tiny.

Enjoy!

Grandmother's Flower Garden with vintage feedsacks

Hello All,
Today i'm featuring a queen size Grandmother's Flower Garden that I made from feedsacks I bought on Ebay. I used all vintage feedsacks, using whatever shades of pink were available for the background (slightly different shades) to make it even more authentic. I had my husband make me a lucite hexagon template, about 1/2" thick, with sandpaper on the back so I could cut my shapes easily. The hexagons started out at one inch, and so are 3/4" at finished size. I did it all by hand, as I don't own a machine, and did not use the paper piecing method. I just Y-seamed all the pieces into each other. So as a result, they are not "sharp" hexagons, maybe more rounded, but I still like them. Teaching yourself to quilt has advantages and disadvantages. If i'd read how I was supposed to have pieced these, I never would have made them in a million years!

I absolutely loved going through all the scraps and choosing patterns that went together for the blocks. Since I love to piece but hate to quilt, I had a quilting friend, Sue of needleweaver, hand quilt it for me. She did an amazing job (for FREE I might add!) and outline quilted every single one of the probably thousands of 3/4" hexagons. You can see her work in the 'white' photo. I loved making this quilt and I hope you like it too.