"....One time Mama came to see me ...later, after she went back home, she sent me out a great big flour sack stuffed full of (fabric)scraps. It was a gift that always meant a lot to me."
"Different ones of my family are always appearing from one of these bags. Just when you thought you'd forgotten someone, will, like right here ..... I remember that patch. That was a dress my grandmother wore to church. I sat beside her singing hymns, and that dress was so pretty to me then, I can just remember her in that dress now."
From "The Quilters, Women and Domestic Art", by Patricia Cooper and Norma Bradley Allen, 1977, 1989, page 75.
The piecin' bag was a life saver for people during the beginning years of our country. Homesteaders that had little money and were far from the city made it a habit to save every scrap of fabric they had, and then sewed those scraps into quilt tops for warmth and beauty. Every scrap was precious, as good as gold. When a young girl was getting ready to be married, she would need quilts to start her new home. Out would come the piecin' bags to find enough fabric to make the quilts. There would be school dresses, and blouses and shirts stuffed in those bags, clothing worn by herself and others during her young lifetime. The quilts that she made from that piecin' bag was like a memory album that she could take with her. Many times the new bride went far away from family and could take little with her but her hope chest, so her quilts became a hug from home that she could wrap up in when times were bad. Those quilts would keep her and the new husband warm on winter nights, and when the babies came they would be wrapped up in them too.
We should all return to the ideal of saving, and using scraps, like in the piecin' bag. The wealth and health of this country was built on the frugality and wisdom of those who saved and re-used everything that they could; it was considered a shameful act to waste anything. There isn't as much of a need for cash when you use and re-use what you already have.
Will you have fond memories of a Starbucks coffee cup 10 years from now?
Edey
