Originally Posted by themachinelady

Oh I remember cording sheeps wool on those carders in the 40's. After shearing of sheep or someone who had sheep, my mom would get some of the wool, wash it in her gas powered wringer washing machine that my dad had put a motor on for her, sort of pull it apart by hand to dry good, and then I would have to sit and card the wool on those (I called them wire brushes) to get all the impurities out that the sheep had picked up out in the fields. It took quite a bit of carding to get those nice clean brick sized pieces of wool batting and then they were laid side by side of each other in the middle of your quilts or comfortors (what we call tied quilts). If it was quilted the quilting had to be done pretty close together. These wool quilts were seldom washed as we wash everything today. I can remember my Grandmother making muslin strips that would fold over the top of the quilt. They sewed buttons on the quilt and made buttonholes in the strip so you could button it on the quilt and then take that part off when it became soiled from your chin and neck area. My Grandmother tied most of her quilts (or comfortors) and you would have several on your bed. They were warm, but they were also heavy as well. Then you also slept on feather beds. Once you had what we called a ;warm nest as we called it, you were toasty for the night. We often wrapped old sad irons or bricks with several layers of rags or old overalls to warm the bed before you got in it as most bedrooms had no heat in them. I can still remember sleeping in a cold bedroom with the featherbed and comforters at my Grandmothers when I was in high school in the fifties. As they say, "Been there done that" and I could survive in hard times if I had to, and sadly some of the younger ones have no clue how to survive hard times (thru no fault of their own). We have it so much easier these days.