Chapter One – PRINTED CLOTH

Chapter Two – FEED and FLOUR SACKCLOTH

Chapter Three – HANKIES

Chapter Four – HOMEMADE

Chapter Five – CLOTH DOLLS and TOYS

Chapter Six – CLOTH BOOKS

To Any Reader

Acknowledgments

The textiles illustrated in this book were acquired from many different people living in towns and cities throughout the United States. Perhaps not surprisingly, the majority of these pieces came from the Midwest and the South. Remnants of printed fabric from quilters in the heartland fill the pages of Chapter One. The sackcloth bags in Chapter Two were far more prevalent in rural areas, and it’s amazing how many have survived intact, while remnants of these bags can also be found in homemade items such as the quilts, clothing, rag dolls, and clothespin bags shown in Chapter Four.

In the 1920s through the 1950s, hundreds of thousands of handkerchiefs were printed with attractive designs, many created especially for kids. Hankies were so inexpensive – as well as necessary – that almost everyone had at least a few. Some people began collecting their favorites, and today, one can choose from the panoply offered by antique shops, at estate sales, and over the internet. Chapter Three could easily have evolved into a book of its own.

Thank you to those who long ago made the items that found their way into this book—the textile artists who designed the delightful children’s prints, the bag companies that provided millions of yards of patterned sackcloth and the women who repurposed that cloth for family use, the people who fashioned handmade dolls in Chapter Five with such care, and the illustrators of the “indestructible” cloth books in Chapter Six.

And many thanks to every person who valued the pieces shown in this book enough to save them no matter how worn, faded, or tattered they might have been.