Feedsack Secrets: Fashion from Hard Times

The poverty of the Depression and fabric shortages during World War II made feedsacks highly important to the quilter during the 1930s and 1940s. In Feedsack Secrets, quilt historian Gloria Nixon shares her research through tens of thousands of pages of old farm periodicals, magazines and newspapers as she explains the story of the patterned feedsack. There are fascinating tidbits along the way: Women met for sack-and-snack-club fabric swaps. There were restrictions on jacket lengths, hem depths and the sweep of a skirt. Feedsack prints and bags played a part in political contests, even accurately predicting that Truman would win the 1948 presidential election. One feed-company promotion was a contest for the best-dressed chicken. Nixon's Feedsack Secrets is a colorful, fun and fascinating ride through a great period of American fabric history.