The Rickrack Rag

Lots of kids got lots of toys from Santa this Christmas. And lots of us are still kids in many ways, and we all love our toys. Here are some feedsacks covered with a selection of little toys:

Three color variations on the same toys, and then some larger toys, too:

OK, everybody play nice - there are plenty of toys to share - and we’ll see you all back here soon for another edition of Feedsack Friday.

Happy New Year!! And don’t miss the feedsacks we’re currently offering on eBay!

Older and deeper in… Well, it’s been quite a year. We are thankful that business has not been as bad as it could be. And that we are warm inside despite this morning’s dusting of snow, not hungry, and relatively healthy. We’ve made our donation to Feeding America, and we’ll make more, I think, because the need is so great.

I can’t believe this blog is now 1 1/2 years old. I had hoped that having a blog would make me more productive, more communicative, even more creative - and it does provide a certain amount of pressure to produce something (anything) meaningful, that someone besides us will actually care about. I’m not sure we’ve been very successful, and I know we’ve been at times neglectful, but the blog has not always been the first order of business. Perhaps the year to come will see us more loquacious, more inspired, even more profound!

The folks on the farm are hunkered down in the cold snowy weather: Our garden chicken,

And one of the fluffier neighbors.

Since we are inside and warm, we plan to stay that way, celebrating marking the passage into the new year curled up here at home, probably sound asleep at midnight. I know I’ll be crossing out dates for a while, as usual, but otherwise will neither curse nor welcome the passage.

And we’ll all be looking through the chilly mist that hangs in the air, hoping for that first glimpse of a spring thaw, ready to go round the seasons once again.

Happy 2010 to all our friends, readers and customers. We’re looking forward to getting to know you all better in the coming year!

I posted recently a post called Vintage Vintage, about the misuse of the word to designate items that aren’t really older, just inspired by older things or made to an older design. And I’ve probably mentioned before how absurd and difficult it can be to try to make a business of selling things that must be sought out and found individually, and offered for sale in whatever condition their age and experience has given them. How much more simple - and businesslike - it is to be able to order things by the dozen, bright and shiny new, and sell them one after another, never having to change the picture or advertising copy.

How much simpler, yes, but where does the joy come in? And that is the word that makes the difference. For some of us (you know who you are!) it’s all about finding that special vintage item, one with character, color, warmth, the love hand-crafted into it! It’s why we keep going to antique shows, flea markets, estate auctions and yard sales - hoping for that brief moment of elation, our heart skipping a beat on finding something wonderfully special. For instance, this Turkey red tablecloth from the Victorian era sets a festive tone for the holidays that can’t be matched by mass-produced, synthetic goods.

Because we are privileged to live in a time of abundance, in an area whose history provides such a wealth of things made and saved, preserved and treasured for generations, we have been able to enjoy this feeling of discovery more frequently than many people, and that enjoyment has accounted for a rather large accumulation of vintage treasure. This is the wealth from which our business was conceived and born, but the joy of the find is still the spark that motivates all that we offer. Hopefully the joy is passed on with many of the special items we’ve been blessed to offer.

One especially tantalizing type of find is that of the unused item, preserved in its original package, still adorned with paper labels or price tags, put away for a rainy day that never came. Again we have been lucky to find many of these, and love having them to offer on our website, like these two tablecloth sets:

Or these aprons:

But even lacking like-new condition and original labels, it’s still a thrill to find something old that has somehow avoided the ravages of time, that has become the exception and survived unscathed, or only showing slight traces of the history that used up most of its contemporaries. This is the case with so many of the quilts we find in our area, the ones that were only for nice, and were carefully stored away for generations while the workaday bedding bore the brunt of the wear and tear. So that an item lovingly crafted 150 years ago can still look like this:

So it is that we enjoy our business because we enjoy the beauty of the items, the connection with the past, and the linking of the past with people of today besides ourselves who appreciate the many qualities we nostalgically revere of days gone by.

I suppose it’s naive of me to have assumed that pristine condition in a vintage items is a desirable quality, though I’d be willing to bet that to most collectors, it is. And so in my naivete, I was surprised to recently receive this email:

Hello & Merry Christmas~
I want to start with telling you how much I did enjoy your aprons choices. I would like to interject though that you should take a little more care in your photography of the items you are advertising to sell……

It is quite obvious to me, and probably others that collect aprons that your items are reproductions and not actually VINTAGE APRONS. Look at the photographs- the aprons are pristine, unwashed, unused and have never been worn before! It can be easily deduced by any aficionado that these aprons are copies that had just been sewn probably from either migrant workers or from a foreign country for pennies on the dollar. I suggest that you wash them then partially iron them to give that a slightly worn look before photographing them.

This is just a suggestion…. I did alert a family member that was thinking of ordering from you that these aprons were not authentic vintage aprons. I’m probably not the first person to do so…..

And another immediately following:

I just took a look at your FAQ page- it is SUCH a lie that these are authentic VINTAGE products- you might want to think about changing your wording… it is totally false!!!

So we have come full circle. Apparently wear and tear is a desired commodity; pristine condition an impossibility! If I were to take these missives to heart, I’d have to change my whole philosophy. It’s not that I don’t find joy in things that have been used, on the contrary I have a special place in my heart for items that have been mended and patched, sometimes patched on top of patches, feeling the value that their owners obviously placed on them over the generations.

The Christmas greeting I received above bothers me more because I’ve been so careful to be honest, to represent what I sell as accurately as possible, and despite all of that been taken to task for gross dishonesty - for lying - based on scant and faulty evidence. Heaven knows I don’t think my pictures are all that good, and all too often the aprons are wrinkly or show a spot or something. But why, if I were selling repros, would I only have ONE of EACH?? I’m crazy enough to be in the vintage business, not crazy enough to try to pretend that new is vintage. Oh yes, and though my business is based on recycling at its best - re-use rather than new manufacture, I’ve been accused of abusing slave labor!

We spoke with this lady on the telephone, and wished her a Merry Christmas also. I think I overcame her skepicism and convinced her that we’re just a couple of people trying to make a living and preserve the best of earlier times, not to hoodwink anyone into buying shoddy merchandise produced in labor camps.

The vintage business. It is crazy, labor intensive, more a hobby than a business really. I’ve been told before that one or another of my items was new, not vintage, and had to point out that the maker whose label adorned the product had not been in business for decades. I’ve also been taken to task for having too great a markup, since the item I was selling for $30 had the tag still on showing that I had paid only $1.29. That tag was also from a store that was out of business before I was in.

I won’t be changing my business model. It’s all right there and plainly visible to an unbiased view. I have often wondered about people who find deception in everything they read or hear. I have no problem with common sense, value it highly in fact, and am the last one to accept everything at face value. But if you look, really look, you can see the difference, can’t you?

Wishing all my readers the most joyous of Christmases, or happiest of whatever holidays you may celebrate!

‘Tis the week before Christmas, and all through the room, I’m looking for feedsacks to brighten the gloom…

Seems we’re about to have our first big snowstorm of the winter, and with temperatures due to stay below freezing, it may be a white Christmas for us this year. There aren’t too many feedsacks that have a Christmas theme, but we did find a few. First are these two featuring candy canes, one in the traditional red and green, the other in an unusual colorway:

That’s all we were able to find in our feedsack stash that showed a specifically Christmas theme in an overall print - but we do have one other Christmas sack from the Chase Bag Co., printed on a larger scale with scattered Santas, candy canes, presents and trees, along with the company logo. I can imagine a stack of these filled with feed at the local mill, lending an air of festivity to an otherwise workaday scene:

I’m not sure we’ll do Feedsack Friday next week on Christmas day, but hopefully we’ll still have a few other holiday-oriented postings. Happy holidays, everyone!

Quilters and others often look for fabrics in solid colors to offset or contrast with print fabrics, and for some reason solid colored feedsacks seem to be among the scarcest. We don’t find them in the same bright colors of the printed sacks; for instance, I have yet to see one in that bright lime green, nor in vivid red. Mostly what we see are subtle shades, pastels and the like. In fact, the very subltlety of the colors makes it difficult for us to post a true representation of the color on our site. We’ve been sold out of solids for a while, but here are some we’ve come across that we’re adding to our stock.

This time we found no yellows, nor pinks - but we have seen them before, along with others…

Of course, there are many, many more. One thing we’ve also found is that some folks home-dyed plain white sacks to use for their projects, but I believe that all of these were factory colors. I do have one in apricot, and one in green, with lettering from the label still on them.

One of the staple colors of quiltmakers of the 19th century was that strong, deep yellow we call “cheddar” today. Though not as popular as the ubiquitous double pink,, overdyed green or “Lancaster” double blue calicoes, cheddar was used by Pennsylvania German quiltmakers in a number of variations. As a solid color fabric, it was used both in backgrounds and in highlights, particularly in applique quilts. Less common were the cheddar calicos, a double print similar to the blues and pinks, and one seen more often with a cheddar lattice with a black and red figure overprinted.

This latter fabric seems to have been a favorite of one Mary Groh, who made these two quilts in Berks County, PA in the latter part of the 19th century. I like them for their vibrancy, not least because of the color choice.

This Chinese lanterns quilt positions the lanterns as pinwheel or windmill blades, set in a bright cheddar field. Sadly, as sometimes happens, the cheddar is somewhat oxidized in places, taking on a greenish tinge.

This 9-patch variation uses the cheddar only in the outer frame of each block, again shows that oxidation. But I love the way the red patches chain the whole pattern together, with another chain of red diamonds in the border. Mary also made a pink ocean waves quilt with embroidered embellishment that is nothing like these two - just illustrating further her artistry and originality - which is what makes me love the huge variety of Pennsylvania German quilts, particularly those of Berks and Lehigh Counties.

After the big feast of yesterday, there were a lot of dishes to clean up. Many of us have used dishtowels made of feedsack over the years, but this week we’ll feature feedsacks with dishes, cups, saucers, plates, etc. printed right on them.

But before we get to that, by way of being thankful ourselves for everything that we have, I want to announce our Feed America feedsack give back. For every feedsack that we sell here at Sharon’s between now and Christmas day, we will donate $1.00 to Feeding America, the network of food banks that helps so much to feed the hungry people of our country. The need is greater this year than ever, and I hope we’ll be able to contribute a lot.

Many of the dishes printed on feedsacks appear to be more decorative than utilitarian, but then who wants to look at dull dishes, pots & pans?

While some are shown set on a table, others are apparently on display.

And some are clearly more appropriate for just beverages, rather than a whole meal.

That’s our selection for this week, now that all the dishes are washed, dried and put away we’ll just be thinking about getting ready for the next feast. And we hope you’ll think, when you think of feedsacks, about feeding those who are less fortunate. Make a donation that matters to your local food bank, soup kitchen or shelter.

One of the things we’re often asked is “What is your definition of vintage?”

Obviously there’s no simple answer to this one. For years we used the cutoff date of about 1960 to describe fabric as vintage, about the time selvedge widths began to exceed 36 inches. But time goes on, and things change. Many of today’s homemakers weren’t even alive in the 1950’s, or even the 1960’s, and to them, fabric/clothing from as recently as the 1970’s or 80’s seems vintage enough. Often it’s those looks that become popular again, after a few decades have passed, that define any particular person’s idea of “vintage”. In keeping with that trend, we have decided that it’s long overdue for us to add 1960’s and 70’s fabrics to our selection at Sharon’s.

Some time ago we added a few fabrics from the 50’s/60’s, some of the earlier flower-power and psychedelic prints, hopefully in the next weeks/months we’ll finally get a bit more added to our selection.

Another use of the V word has begun to irritate me more and more. It seems that many marketers out there, from small businesses to large, have realized that there is a market for vintage. Of course, it takes a special variety of insanity such as ours to try to make a business work based on only genuine vintage items; certainly a chain of retail mega-stores cannot find or maintain a marketable supply of true vintage or antique items. So of course the next best thing is newly made, vintage-style items. Take aprons, for instance. A Google search for vintage aprons will bring up a few sellers offering real aprons from the 1940’s and 50’s, but also among the top ten results are at least 4 or 5 companies offering vintage aprons - that are in fact vintage inspired but newly made, with a nod to retro design but often very contemporary. And there are more in the paid listings. Fine, it’s not that these items shouldn’t be available, there might never be enough real vintage to go around if everyone wants them. But to call them vintage aprons rather than retro or vintage-style aprons is at least a little bit deceptive to my mind. What do you think?

When you search for vintage aprons, are you hoping to find ones like these, from our stock at Sharon’s, or something new?

We looked up the term Vintage on the web and found, along with the definitions relating specifically to wine, where the “vint” in vintage comes from, a Wikipedia article on vintage clothing. In saying that vintage is a euphemism for old, they assert that vintage clothing generally dates from the 1920’s to the 1970’s. They also mention the term retro, which they interpret, as I do, to mean in a vintage style, harking back to earlier styles. I don’t believe that anyone refers to new clothing as vintage, no matter how retro the style may be. So somehow aprons have become an exception to this rule, I don’t know why, and I beg to disagree!

I should also mention that a search for vintage fabric also turns up new fabrics in great numbers; here, however, most sellers have the grace to use the term vintage reproduction fabrics, though some few do not. Precision in language is not something for which the internet will receive a high grade.

Sharon grew up Catholic, so Friday meant fish. One day, you could be cast into Hell for eating meat, then suddenly it’s ok. This Friday we’re featuring fish on feedsacks - you’ll see that most of them are rather tropical looking. We’ve had the one in the center, with the surfers and spear-fishermen in several colorways.

I especially like that one with the seahorses; had it once ten years ago and haven’t seen it since.

Finally, though we have a number of sacks featuring various types of fish, we’ve seen only this one that concentrates on the subject of traditional fishing, in a somewhat abstract and design-y way. Which makes this another of our favorites - you might say we fell for it hook, line and sinker.

Fisherman’s luck on Friday the 13th? Maybe… but join us next week when hopefully we’ll be back on dry land for another Feedsack Friday.

We’ve always thought that some feedsacks were pretty enough to frame as art, but today we’re featuring feedsacks that actually have framed vignettes, pictures or figures as part of their design. Here are three variations on a fruit theme; I have to say that the yellow bananas are considerably more appetizing than the pink or blue!

These framed tropical scenes might also be the view from the windows of a tiki hut; we also have floral still life pictures on pink walls, and oval cameo portraits.

That’s all we have today, see you next Feedsack Friday!