40's model here, but my granny lived with us and she was a seamstress. She made most of our school clothes out of feed and flour sacks. Most were calicoes and most were I guess pastels, but there was a lot of reds, yellows, blues and greens.I remember granny going through the Sears catalog and seeing a dress she wanted to make then drawing the pattern herself on old newspaper. She sewed all our clothes on her old Singer Treadle machine. Wish i had that today!!