GRANDMA FROGGER: SKIRTS, SHIFTS & APRONS

WAY BACK IN TIME:

The best part of my childhood was when I was 10 and 11 and in fifth and sixth grade (1958-61).  They were the happiest years, I had my family to myself.  We were on furlough/time in the US for my fifth grade and in public school. My mother was the teacher for sixth when we returned and I got two new brothers those years.

1952 me in a Blue floral print chicken feed sack dress

I was very excited one day in time long ago.  My mother had sent me up the mountain one day with pieces of fabric to a seamstress.  I was going to learn how to sew my own clothes.

 The small house was among one that dotted the landscape and the path that led up to it was flanked by corn fields.
There nestled between coffee and banana trees, yucca with their sharp dagger like leaves  and some flowers, I found the neat cottage type cabin, a simple, somewhat remote, rough looking house on a terraced piece of land.
I made my way across the small yard, into the home, and there in the dim lit room, off to the side on the dirt floor sat the treadle sewing machine.
 I could hardly contain my excitement as the seamstress showed me how to cut and make patterns.   She taught me how to make a regular apron and a bib apron.



 My mother had seen me spending so much time making doll clothes, that she figured I should spend my time more wisely in sewing more grown-up clothes.

11 yrs., 6th grd.- Wearing an apron I made

 I have fond memories of going to the mercantile store and choosing fabric for what I was going to make. (Yes, mercantile,  the store reminded me of the Little House store sort of.)
During those days, I lived, dreamed and breathed and loved the looks and feel  of fabric and of choosing yards of fabric.  I was in love with fabric. Sometimes they sold fabric on outdoor Market Day.
However, the excitement of adventures to purchase fabric was dampened by financially lean years, we were unable to afford much.
During those years my great grandmother Emily Elizabeth was raising chickens at Black Oak Road Chicken Farm in Hammond Indiana.

Frugal Fabric matching outfits made out of chicken feed sacks.

She was buying commercial feed for her chickens and the feed came in cotton muslin bags. The sacks were brightly printed and colorful designed materials, which Great Grandma would send to us down in Mexico.  Flour for baking bread also came in those somewhat attractive bags.
I was not to excited at this fabric as it did not rival the beauty and softness of that at the store.
Well anyway.  I did learn to make classic aprons, skirts, pj's, and shift dresses.  The shift dress was very popular in the 1950's and 60's.  The shift was my favorite dress as it was easy to make and easy to shift or move around in and represented the constant shift of circumstances in my life.  Even our window and door curtains were made from the feed sacks. 

I wore bibbed aprons all the time because I did not have many changes of clothes.  All the women and the girls wore aprons those days to protect their dresses and wore the same dress all week.

I looked forward to each lesson and was captivated by our seamstress.  She could reproduce anything from a picture.  My mother would give her old discarded sewing pattern catalogs like McCalls,Simplicity or Butterick and she would make her own patterns from the picture or she could look at a model from a Sears or J.C. Penny's catalog.  She was amazing!  She could make anything.  I loved the sound of that treadle machine as it clickity-clacked.

My brother's feed sack two pc print play suit

. I still sewed clothes for the dolls and when I was introduced to Barbie & Ken what fun it was to make clothes for them because you did not need much cloth.


I still dream of winning the fabric lottery and you can still find me in the fabric section of the store touching and feeling the various fabrics.

Feed Sack-cotton dress with lace

Loving the texture & color of fabric

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FLOUR & FEED SACKS