Every summer we went to Wisconsin Dells on the weekends. We had a lot in Lake Delton that we had a trailer on. I was in 4th grade and mom decided that my sister (3 yrs older) and I should have a hope chest. Of course that meant that we had to fill it. Our hope chest was a paper box with our names on it. My dad worked on a turkey farm and he brought home the boxes for us. Mom then got flour sack towels and drew lines on them. We used red and blue thread and did running stitches along each ends of the towels. When done, we put them in our hope chest. Each summer we did things for our hope chest all involved various stitched (running, cross stitch, chain, satin, etc.)When the box got filled up, Dad would bring home a larger box. I didn't do actual sewing until I reached high school and in home economics.
On a side note of sewing...my grandmother would invite us to stay with her a couple of days before Thanksgiving each year and told us to bring our dolls so that they could go and visit Santa for a vacation. We went to her hour with our dolls (only the best behaved ones of course) and put them on the magic step. The next morning they were gone. We would not see them until Christmas Eve but they would send us postcards telling how much fun they had at the North Pole. They also came back from the North Pole with a whole new wardrobe. It wasn't until we were older that we started to notice that Grandma's aprons, placemats, and tableclothes matched our dolls new outfits. When we asked her she said that Santa was nice enough to send them back to her for being the travel agent. When we got older yet, she finally said...."If you question it too much the North Pole won't be accessible to your dolls." We stopped questioning her after that. :)