The Rickrack Rag

The first patent issued for feedsacks made from printed material was issued in 1924. The George Plant Milling Co. of St. Louis sold Gingham Girl Flour in red checked bags. It took a number of years after that until more printed sacks began to appear, but it was a beginning. We know the end result; more than 18,000 different feedsack print patterns!

I imagine that the first red gingham bags looked something like one of these:

We have no way of knowing at this late date, barring any sack that should turn up retaining the Gingham Girl label, whether it was a straight or diagonal check, or the exact scale of the print. Since the first ones, colors have included the entire rainbow and scales have ranged from quite large to tiny. Examples of some of the larger checks:

Here are some in medium scale for you to check out:

We noticed that there seems to be a broader range of color available as the scale gets smaller:


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This week’s feedsack Friday subject is Paisley prints. Paisley is a very old pattern, the “twisted teardrop” shape has been known since at least the 17th century in India and Persia. The western name, Paisley, comes from a town in Scotland where weavers and dyers adapted the pattern to the Victorian shawls that were made there.

Since that time paisley has never completely gone out of style, having peaked again in the hippie years, and making something of a resurgence again at present. The feedsack era was certainly no exception; there must be hundreds of paisley variations in feedsacks, from traditional interpretations to all sorts of combinations with other images, mostly floral.

Sometimes large paisley motifs dominate the design, other times they are small and just one element in an overall pattern.

Perhaps you remember paisley patterns on those ubiquitous red bandanas. Well, the red bandanas also made their way into feedsack design:

Sometimes the paisley pattern is composed completely of flowers:

I couldn’t resist these whimsical designs with paisley decorated bubbles:

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Though antique and vintage quilts often share common factors, there is usually something that sets each one apart from the others. Any quilt not made from a kit involves choices on the quilter’s part as far as fabric selection, pattern, scale, quilting designs, and more. We are often intrigued and delighted most by quilts representing the more unconventional choices on the part of the maker. So it is with our subject today.

It’s an applique pattern known as oak leaf and reel, or sometimes just oak leaf. In the 19th century, when this pattern was most common, the traditional fabric choices included red and green on white, or two color quilts with just one contrasting color on white, usually red or indigo. That’s why finding this quilt brought a smile to our faces.

I’ve seen lots of double wedding ring, Dresden plate and Sunbonnet Sue quilts done in 1930’s prints, but this is the first one I’ve seen using those fabrics for a traditional applique pattern like this.

OK, it’s definitely not what we’re used to, but certainly delightful in it’s own right!

This little vintage pitcher from Czecheslovakia just sits in our bathroom most of the time, sometimes with an added rose or two from the garden. It’s damaged, and wouldn’t sell for much if anything, but it’s fine for me and the whimsical decoration always brightens my day when I look at it, and it’s perfect for Valentine’s day!

OK, when we were kids, there were two separate holidays in February, Lincoln’s Birthday on the 12th and Washington’s on the 22nd. In order not to give government and bank employees too many days off, and not to slight one president or the other, the two holidays have been combined into one since 1968. But I still remember fondly all the cherry pies associated with the Washington’s Birthday holiday, based, of course, on the popular myth of George having chopped down his dad’s cherry tree.

At any rate. to honor the holiday, this week we’re featuring feedsacks with a cherry theme. And there are many - from realistic bright red, juicy looking ones to the utterly fantastic. Some of the more mouth-watering ones:

But of course fabric designers do not feel constrained to realism, and all sorts of variations on a cherry theme can result.

Who knew cherries could be blue? Here are more in combination with various leaves and flowers:

We’ve limited ourselves this week to cherries; though they’re often combined with other fruit on feedsacks, for those you may have to wait until “Fruit salad Friday.”

As you can see, there are various colorways of many designs, and the variety is nearly endless. We’re not finished yet… (more…)

We’ve been living in the past for so long, little changes seem to take on huge significance in our lives. For years we didn’t watch television at all, then for 4 years or so we watched only a 15 inch black and white. Now that we’ve been using a 17 inch Sony color set for the last 5 years or so, I’m afraid we’ve passed the point of no return.

Living, as we do, pretty far out in the country, and using only the rabbit ears antenna attached to the set, we’ve had to settle for a total of four broadcast channels to get our television fix. With the coming of all-digital TV later this year, and the impossibility of rabbit ears pulling in any channel at all out here in the sticks, we’ve finally entered the 20th century (I know the calendar says we’re in the 21st, but give us time.) and gotten a satellite receiver.

This may explain why we’ve posted fewer blog entries lately, as we play with the myriad choices never before available. After years of running our website with only a dial-up connection, and last year’s switch (finally) to DSL, now this satellite thingy, soon our Luddite friends won’t know us at all. And who knows what will become of us if this awful progress should continue?

Just over a week until the big day, the occasion of gifts of candy and flowers and everything with a heart motif, so this week we’re beginning the celebration with feedsacks for the romantic, each decorated with hearts and most with flowers. First, three colorways of this valentine feedsack with lacy hearts, bows and scattered rosebuds and tiny hearts:

All of the next three feature hearts in red, but blue plays an important part two, in the flowers of the first and third and the background of the one in the middle.

Next, a pair with yellow hearts enclosing roses, alternating with hearts composed of flowers in the same color as the roses….

Three more with hearts and flowers:

The next two use hearts as part of a folk art motif, so they are perhaps less appropriate for Valentine’s day, but the final one looks like it was made just for the occasion.

One more thing; we often notice that vintage fabrics that are not feedsack were printed in the same patterns as feedsacks. In the case of our Valentine’s day special selections, we have two examples currently on the novelty fabrics section of our website:

Here it is the second of February - winter’s almost over! I wish! Unfortunately, when the groundhog made his appearance in Punxsutawney this morning, he was frightened by his shadow, thereby decreeing that we’ll suffer this season for another six weeks.

Note that the fellow in the picture is looking askance down to his left at the darkened area on the snow where his corpulent form has blocked the sunlight. Living here in Pennsylvania, we have come to accept the ubiquitous grondhog as a part of life; scarcely a summer’s day goes by that we don’t see one along the roadside, or skittering off under the bushes as we approach the garden. The picture above, therefore, is also something of a favorite.

For a number of years I’ve accumulated/collected books illustrated by Charles Livingston Bull. His subject was nature, and he illlustrated more than 135 books from the turn of the century until his death in 1932. I especially like the simplicity of his style, influenced by the Japanese print. At the same time his representations of animals are lifelike and capture moments of motion that typify the actions of those animals. Among the most famous of the books he illustrated were Jack London’s Call of the Wild and White Fang. His leaping tigers poster was one of the most famous used by the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey circus.

In addition, Bull illustrated magazine stories, articles and covers, far too many to count. About 1980 there was a small traveling exhibit of his works that I attended when it was at the Brandywine River Museum in Chadd’s Ford, PA - home of the late Andrew Wyeth. The Brandywine has a penchant for the art of illustrators, since it’s the home of a considerable amount of Wyeth art, and Andrew’s father N.C. Wyeth was famous for his illustrations of many an adventurous tale. The exhibit was sponsored by a museum in Alberta, the Glenbow Museum, which itself has a considerable holding of the paintings and drawings of illustrators.

Back to the picture above - it’s an original mixed media on illustration board which I bought at a local auction years ago. It was published as the cover of Country Gentleman Magazine, January 29, 1916, just a couple of days before Groundhog Day - which has been celebrated in PA since at least 1887. Today, posters of this Country Gentleman cover are available online, given the title “Beaver in Winter”!! Though I suppose he could be construed as a beaver, I doubt that his appearance would have been so close to Groundhog day - and since Bull lived nearby in New Jersey, it is hard to imagine that he was unaware of the custom. Additionally, Bull was a stickler for accuracy, and the erect posture is characteristic of the groundhog, while a standing beaver would usually be more forward-leaning. Compare to this picture of a groundhog from Wikipedia:

Little doubt in my mind, even down to the coloration, Bull has drawn a groundhog here. Too bad he drew a shadow, too! Aren’t you tired of winter?