Quilt Cover Made of Cotton Sacks - 1930s
This is not a quilt but a quilt cover, sewn together on three sides and intended to protect a quilt from wear. The cover is made of flour sack fabric, which was also frequently used in quilts of the late-19th to mid-20th centuries.
Quilters of the past often could not afford to purchase new fabric but had to make do with what was available. Feed and flour sacks were an excellent source of “free” cotton fabric, as they were purchased primarily for the product they contained. Feed sacks held poultry and other animal food. Cotton sacks were also used as packaging for various human foodstuffs, including flour, sugar, barley, rolled oats, and cornmeal. Women used sack fabric to make clothing, towels, quilt blocks, and quilt backings. Originally the sacks were plain but by the 1930s companies offered bags printed in colorful patterns to appeal to customers who sewed.
The stylized basket designs are made from printed and solid colored cotton bags from the 1930s. The basket blocks alternate with hand-embroidered outlines of flowers and animals.
The basket blocks are made of pieced bases and machine appliqued handles. Flowers and animals are embroidered on the alternate blocks. Embroidery patterns for these types of designs were readily available from women’s magazines and catalogs.
Pages from a booklet advertising ways to economize using the fabric sacks that held flour, corn, and other home and farm products.
