when I was very young, my grandmother used to work in the fine china department in JC Penny's, because there were so many kids in the family(7) she would use her discount and purchase bolts of fabric for my mom to use to sew clothes for us, it was not always cotton, I think they quite selling fabric in the late sixties, by the way, I read something a while back about using a match or lighter to test for fabric content :D