Feed Sack & Egg Money Quilts Memorialized

 

A treasure I found while book hunting recently was Eleanor Burns’ “Egg Money Quilts” which told the story of frugal women who raised chickens and sold eggs, often keeping the resultant “egg money” for their own uses.

Burns’ book refers to the hard times during the Depression when no family could afford to waste any resource. She describes and illustrates how the smart farmer’s wife made use of a byproduct of raising chickens – chicken feed sacks – to make a quilt. The solid white or off-white chicken feed sacks made ideal quilt backgrounds.

To boost sagging sales, many newspapers printed a weekly quilt square pattern. (Burns shows both an original newspaper pattern and a vintage quilt made from it.) Some quilters would go on to make the entire quilt with one pattern while others would mix and match patterns. Often the women would copy each week’s pattern as a separate sample block so that a quilt might have many patterns on it, just as the earlier samplers preserved embroidery stitches for young girls to consult when they were in charge of their own homes.

Quilt square pattern sizes varied and some quilters combined rows of five larger squares with rows of six smaller squares adding borders to unify designs. Multi-colored prints with sparse backgrounds were most popular in vintage “egg money” quilts. Prints of various scales were combined in the same quilt, as well as tone-on-tone prints. Polka- dots and plaids added extra charm.

Burns’ book shows just how these variations developed, demonstrating with how-to-do patterns and directions for many quilted projects. Examples of pillows, aprons, bags, and clothing are interspersed with vintage recipes and traditions. The book is user-friendly and chock full of illustrations, templates, and her personal memories.

In addition, the author shows how flour sacks were more brightly colored while feed sacks were lighter and more subtle in color and pattern so they would not conflict with the flour sack patterns. She notes that husbands were often ordered to bring home enough sacks with the same pattern to complete a project.

The book’s bright color photos showcase quilt patterns with evocative names that recall their rural origin – Garden Walk, Dresden Plate, Christian Cross, Friendship, Turkey Tracks, Double Wedding Ring, Rocky Road to Kansas, Rosebuds, Peony, Grandmother’s Flower Garden, Road to California, and Old Maid’s Puzzle. The quilts that survived that era are keepsakes that tell the story of hardship and loss, but also of love and endurance, during rural hard times.

                                                            Linda Donaldson