Thrift Style

The reuse of feed, flour, and sugar sacks in clothing and other household objects became popular during the mid-1920s. Businesses capitalized on interest by introducing bags with increasingly varied printed patterns. The sacks and other fabric scraps from manufacturers continued to serve thrifty home sewers during the Great Depression and into the 1960s. A collectors market for the bags and fabric remnants thrives today. 

This exhibition will explore the recycling of fabrics in clothing and quilts drawn from the collection of the Historic Costume and Textile Museum of Kansas State University. Varied feed bags from a 2016 gift to that museum will highlight the range of print motifs available to twentieth-century home sewers.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website