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[SJC <indexer AT localnet.com>]

VAN DELL JORDAN wrote:
> The side we put up is the one that happens to be on
> top when we spread the sheet out.
> Did anyone else have the experiance of sleeping on
> flour sack sheets.  They had a seam down the center
> each direction because they were made of 4 sacks sewn
> together.  I was surprised to learn that most sheets
> weren't like that.
>   
Ah, yes:  making those seams was the way we learned to make good neat 
flat-felled seams---practice, practice.  I still make a good flat-felled 
seam.....  Then when the sheet began to wear in the center, one cut it 
apart and sewed what were the outside edges into a new center seam and 
hemmed the 'new' outside edges, thereby stretching the life of the thing 
until it truly was a rag, then it was laundered and carefully cut or 
torn into strips, which were rolled or folded and put in the 'rag 
drawer' on the left side.  Those were our bandages.

I had, until the last fire 6 years ago, the first sheet I'd ever made, 
and somehow it still looked pretty to me: tiny little red figures on a 
whitish ground.  I remember stubbornly hassling my brother to rearrange 
the feed bags so I could get four of the same pattern freed up early and 
thus get started.  Funny how some of that stuff sticks with you.

Susan Jane, in Maine, where feed comes in truly nasty plastic now.