Originally Posted by Scissor Queen
Almost all fabric used to be torn when you bought it. The stores had a measuring thing they pulled the fabric thru and when it was the amount you wanted they'd push on it and it would cut a notch and then the clerk would tear the fabric.
Oh, Queen!!! I had forgotten all about that little tool in the fabric shops....it had a dial on the top that moved like a clock as they pulled the fabric through, and then the little cutter mechanism that made the notch to tear the fabric. WOW!! I would never have remembered that!!! I recently was at a quilt show where a vendor was tearing the fabric she sold. I was fascinated, and she said that's the only way she knows the fabric is straight on grain, and she would never do it another way.