Feedsacks...

I am blessed to be the daughter of Melvin Bennett. She's my mom. Yes, I know Melvin is a boy's name. She does too. My Granny, Ethel Southern, thought Mom was going to be a boy. She'd picked out the name "Melvin Louis." When Mom turned out to be a girl, Granny added an "e" to the end of her middle name and thus was born "Melvin Louise Southern."

Growing up I heard all sort of stories about the olden days. I had a few favorites as a little kid. But as I approached adulthood, got married and began having children of my own, I came to treasure the wisdom of these two fine women of God.

I can remember in 8th or 9th grade getting a new dress. My mom said, "That looks like a feedsack dress." A what?

Off and on I'd heard Mom and Granny talk about feedsacks and making dresses and shirts from them. Gotta be honest... I didn't really "get" what they were talking about. But one day I sat with them in my mom's den and we got to talking about the olden days of the Great Depression when, whatever you got, you used it until you couldn't use it anymore.

Take feedsacks. (OK... click here for a primer on feedsacks. And click here to see a nice selection of vintage feedsack fabrics.)

They had a tobacco farm. And they had chickens. Chicken feed came in sacks made of very durable decorative fabrics. Once the feed was out of the sack, they'd wash the sack and make a dress or apron or shirt or bonnet or curtains or whatever else out of it. The bonnets must last forever because I've never heard tell of anyone making a bonnet into anything else. But the dresses, aprons, curtains and shirts eventually wore out.

You'd think that'd be the end of them, wouldn't you? I mean, when we get an ugly stain or giant tear in an article of clothing, even Goodwill won't take it. So it goes into the trash. Rag bag... for what? We use Swiffer Dusters to dust and wash dishes in the dishwasher. But back in the day, they would cut up worn out adult feedsack clothes and make children's clothes or dishrags or, my personal favorite, quilts.

I have a nice collection of quilts that Mom and Granny and Grandma Bennett (my dad's mom) made from feedsack fabric. And I wouldn't take a (Momma, you know I can't say that on this blog)... uh...anything in this world for one of them. I will give them away someday, though. To Kelsey. And to Zane's and Zack's wives. Treasures like those need to belong to women. There's a heart connection between the generations of women in a family.

So, I come by that hey-don't-throw-that-away-we-might-be-able-to-use-it-sometime philosophy honestly. Except that with the help of the Flylady, I have been able to part with some of the old junk. Some.

But before I run out and buy something new, it is my family legacy to look around and see if I can "make do" by using something I already have for a different purpose. I thought I was old school in that, and then the other day, my YOUNG friend, Sarah, made this wonderful post on her blog, "Create." How inspiring!

So I'm going to take a little challenge and see what around here I can "repurpose." Check back in a couple of days. I'll post the results.