kathome

I worked in the fabric department at Sears during and right after high school. They also had a notions dept which was separate from the fabrics dept, and sold not only thread, zippers, buttons and such, but yarn as well. The fabric dept was Dept. 36 and the Notions Dept was #25.


That was a long, long time ago.

beksclen

My maternal grandparents lived in the Ozarks of MO. My grandfather had a small dairy farm. Grandpa used to buy his feed at the local general and feed store just down the road from their house. I remember well those cotton feed sacks and my mom taking that fabric home and making me little dresses from them. Guess I'm giving away my age here too, though I do believe I was near the tail end of that era.

beksclen

Oh my goodness I had forgotten all about those meters. Thanks for the reminder.

Ruby Y Campos

I remember well when J C Penneys sold fabric as did most other department stores. I wasn't into the quilting yet, but I do remember buying fabrics for making my own clothes. When I first came to Chicago Marshall Fields had a fabric department and sold Singer Sewing Machines as well.

GailG

And speaking of Singer,we used to buy beautiful fabrics at the Singer Sewing Machine shop. Notions, everything.

Tropical

I used to love Mom's button box when I was little. She used to take a BiG button and put a doubled string through it somehow and got the button to sit in the middle of the string and then when she pulled on the string in opposite directions the button it would spin. Sounds crazy but we little ones loved it. A real homemade toy.

bakermom

Oh yes we made those! don't get it too close to your hair though!Ouch!

Alice Woodhull

This has been a wonder trip down Memory Lane. I remember making those puzzles with string and a button. I used the3 biggest I could find. I would play with it until I had broken the string and retied it so much it wouldn't work any longer. I believe the string I used what what came out when taking the string out of the feed sack so it could be washed and ironed. Yes, I wore many of those dresses too. Dried dishes on the white ones. Chicken feed came with a label glued onto a white sack that soaked off real easy. I hemmed a lot of them for my mom to use as dish towels.

imanoni

I remember that clock dial measuring thing. I went on a quilters bus trip a while ago, and one of the fabric stores we stopped at actually would tear the fabric for you if you asked which I did, and some of the other women on the trip had no idea why...

Lucy90

I always bought fabric at JC Penny. My mom used to let me buy fabric because I liked to sew at an early age and we got to have sewing class when we were in the 7th grade. So that was in 1958. I think in our store they quit selling in the late 60's early 70's. I used to buy fabric to make some baby clothes.