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Carol Perkins: Let's Talk About...Flour Sack Dresses An episode on Project Runway brought back memories of flour sack dresses, and a wonderful column filled with nostalgic remarks from writer's Facebook friends, Peggy Spradlin, Mary Alice Yokley, Romana Murrell, Louise Firkins, Freda Duggar, Gaye Berry and Patty Hughes, along with a look at what future popular fashion holds Next previous Carol Perkins column: Let's Talk About . . . Field Hockey By Carol Perkins My favorite TV show is Project Runway. Not that I think the designs are lovely, because most of them are not, but the show holds my attention. Each week designers are given a task, some of which are ridiculous, but their job is to "make do" with what they have and create a winning design. They must also sew their own creations. One week they were given potato sacks (burlap bags) and were told to create something to wear to a party. For some reason, this made me think of flour sack dresses and how mothers during the Depression, and even later, made dresses and shirts from printed flour sacks and feed sacks. These sacks came in an assortment of pretty prints, and women usually went with their husbands on days he was going to the mill so she could pick out the prettiest prints. (What would he know!) One sack would usually make a dress or a shirt. Children did not have many clothes during the Depression, so the youngest girl was lucky if she ever had a sack dress first. Hand-me-downs were common and necessary. I asked for comments from my Facebook friends and discovered that many of them not only remembered this time, but were part of it. Here are some of the many responses: One of my classmates Peggy Spradlin: "I wore feed sack dresses when I was a little girl. Mom would let me go to the Subtle Country Store with Daddy when he needed to buy feed, and I would pick out the sack that I wanted a dress made out of. I still remember a little plaid sundress that was one of my favorite dresses of all time. It was really pretty and I felt so proud when I wore it. I also got to have an orange soft drink and peanuts. What a treat!! Special memories."Play Life Forward The latest craze this year is the pillow slip dress for little girls. Have you seen them? They are so cute and if you buy rather than make them, they are not cheap. All I have seen have big tie ribbons at the shoulder. The difference today and the day of the flour sack dresses is that the pillow slip dresses are a novelty; the flour sack dresses were necessities. I wouldn't want to go back to those days for many reasons, and neither would you, but I have to admit that I find something very sentimental about an era where mothers' hands created clothes for their children. They made something beautiful out of something very ordinary. By the 50's, paper bags replaced fabric ones, and then plastic replaced paper. What next? We're so green we may now have sacks in a few years. We'll go back to sacks made of cloth. Those mothers knew how to recycle! (email Carol at cperkins@scrtc.com. Her book, Let's Talk About, is available at Ivy Bookstore, 402 Rogers RD, Glasgow, KY) This story was posted on 2010-05-23 10:21:26
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Carol Perkins: Let's Talk About... Field Hockey Carol Perkins: Sinus! Carol Perkins: In a hurry Carol Perkins: The Furniture Truck Carol Perkins: Color Me Beautiful Carol Perkins: Willie Carol Perkins: I witnessed the Civil Rights Movement Carol Perkins, Perfect Vision Carol Perkins: Affairs to Remember Carol Perkins: The Teepee View even more articles in topic Carol Perkins |
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