Thank you for dropping by my Raising Jane Journal to participate in my giveaways! We’ve chosen a winner for this giveaway already, but don’t be afraid to leave a comment anyway. I love reading them.
In the June/July 2022 issue of MaryJanesFarm, “Courage+Dreams=” (on newsstands May 3), I led you here to my journal for a chance to win a stack of vintage flour-sack fabric.
For a chance to win, tell me why you connect with the nostalgia of MaryJanesFarm in the comments below. (It might make it into one of our upcoming issues.) I’ll toss your name into a hat and draw a lucky winner sometime soon.
Stay tuned for more magazine-related giveaways. If you’re not yet a subscriber to my magazine, MaryJanesFarm, subscribe here for $19.95/year.
I lived on a farm for the first eight years of my life in LufkinTx. With all farm animals . Then er moved to Houston Tex on two acres where we had chickens, a horse and my grandfather had iOo acres where we had cows, and horses. My mother went to the feed store often and when she went I was along to pick out the feed sack I wanted to make my dress out of. It was so much fun and I was so excited . The first one I had was sunflowers an manu mire to follow. It was so much fun and I couldn’t wait to go . My mom made me the cutest sundresses. She had. Singer cabinet sewing machine antique that I still have today and it works perfect. I used it to make my home making suit, and a skirt on it in school. We got to bring it home to work on it. Such good old days
As usual always something creative and intriguing in my Mary Jane Magazine for Spring! I too am very creative; sewing, embroidery, knitting, crocheting and even getting back into a bit of macrame. Also a lover of crafts of all sorts…had so many ideas I used as a teacher to bring hands on exploring to my kindergarten children’s learning. So enjoyable for all of us!
As I read about flour sacks and creating with them, the pictures bring back memories of both my dear Swedish Grandma’s working away in their kitchens wearing their sack cloth aprons, cooking, sewing, creating a world of yummy delicious smells, setting our mouths to yearning for the wonderful tastes of homemade goodies! Thank you for sending me back to an amazing in my life.
I still have a couple flour sacks my grandmother had from the 30s. I found them in her box of quilting patterns I inherited. I used to sit under her hand quilting frame when younger watching her quilt using these sacks pieces together. She also made clothespin bags for family members when they married. Found memories I share with my children and grandchildren.
My family lived off the land. You never ever wasted anything. When we put up a hog, we even made the lard. When we fixed a chicken we made it squawk, it meant we didn’t get just one meal we had to get 4. chicken dumplings, chicken soup, chicken dressing, occationally fried chicken. I learned early how to sew. my first project was my formal for the christmas dance. I primarly taught my self. My grandmother made us dresses and quilts from old flour sacks. Flour sacks are so practical and fun they wear for ever and they had many prints.
Your magazine has been very inspirational and has given me many great memories of the past and the future to share with my family. Thank you if I win the sacks I will make great use of them.
It is not only the nostalgia that I connect with – the do-it-yourself attitude, the gratitude for simple pleasures, the caring for and connection with others – it is also the belief that this kind of life is possible right now. I see it in every issue, with the examples of what others are doing and thinking. Mary Jane’s Farm shows and supports all readers in living a healthy and authentic life. This may be based on nostalgia, but it is also real today today. This is what keeps me coming “back to the farm”. Thank you for existing!
I was so happy to see this book this time. I love the flour sacks. It brings back a lot of memories.when I was growing up we live on a farm.we never had a lot of money.but I know that my grandma and my mom use to make different things with the flour sacks.thank you for the bring back memories of living on the farm.
I grew up without electricity and indoor plumbing. Life was simpler and happier. That is the feeling I get from your magazine. Family/Community/Church was our world. Much better to read MaryJanesFarm magazine than listening to the News!! Also grew up wearing Feed Sack clothes. Oh to be back in those Times!!
I love the back to basics idea and the simplicity of the magazine. It brings comfort to my life and takes me to places, ideas and a life style I love.
My mom passed away on Mother’s Day this year at the age of 82. This article got my attention because during the Covid years we had started talking less about our normal weather and how are you feeling talk to what was it like growing up long ago. She told me about her mom making her and her sisters dresses out of flour sacks and seed bags. We still have piles of pictures to go through and I’m going to be looking for those dresses made of bags.
I enjoy Mary Jane’s Farm magazine because it is like stepping back in time; to a quieter ,slower paced lifestyle. I was privileged to get to live in a 1910 farmhouse for 33 years. In 2019 a major flood destroyed it…but I will always cherish the memories I made there. We had vintage items throughout the old house. My vintage apron collection was up high in the upstairs..so I still have them, some of them are made from flour sacks! I enjoyed the short article about flour sack cloth in the June/July issue for that very reason!
Picking up a Mary Jane’s Farm magazine at the local grocer newsstand several years ago was a true “pick up” life saver. The magazine has been inspirational, dream builder, challenger and yes, even nostalgic. I grew up in a city but now live in a small rural town. (My brother thinks I lost my mind loving the slower pace; personally I question his sanity spending hours in traffic.) I could go on for hours with stories of the items I’ve crafted (from clothespin bag to a small home), but the inner joy and encouragement the magazine has brought me tops the list. That said, I couldn’t resist the chance to comment on your blog about “flour sacks” My flour sacks memory holds a special place because while visiting country cousins during my childhood (about 12 years old), we stitched cheerleading outfits from my aunts stash and competed with the girls at the next farm. Although cheerleading was not my “thing”, I was awed with the origins, textures and colors of the fabric used for our outfits.
So thanks for the opportunity to relive memories, ideas for projects and encouragement to dream in this season of my life, which by the way is my 6th decade of life. I “met” Mary Jane’s magazine when I was in my 50’s! Testimonial for “It’s never too late!”
I love to receive your magazine! From books to read to the wonderful recipes and everything in between!!!
What I love about Mary Jane’s Farm is that it brings me back to simpler times where we just enjoyed life, nature and people. We did not need a lot of technology to get along.
I remember, as a child, being allowed to chose which sack was purchased. So hard. Border print or covered with flowers? What color? When the sack was empty, my mother transformed it into something wonderful for me. It was a sad moment when I had to admit, after several decades of careful care, that my favorite pillowcase with a yellow border and tiny flowers was worn out in every sense of the word. I now have a 13 year old great niece who would cherish anything she and I could make out of retro fabrics. Looking through the badges to be earned, I find that I could have attached the majority of them to my very ragged Carhartt jackets over the years. Perhaps to repair the edges worn to fringe from years of ranch work. I find it comforting that the things that have been a part of my everyday are appealing to modern women as a way to reconnect with nature and the pursuits that have grounded and sustained me my entire life.
I’m an avid reader of Mary Jane’s Farm and enjoy remembering foods, gardening and clothing articles from past and incorporating into present day. The remembering of the past, along with the excitement of the new keeps everyday a new memory in the making! The “Flour Sack” dresses were a welcome gift if I came across one when I was young. I’d pick one of these over a new store bought dress any time. Even at a young age, I appreciated the hand-made love that went into creating them. I confess, if I win these flour sacks, I will not be making anything with them, but will covet each one unselfishly!!
Thank you, MaryJane’s Farm for the monthly smiles!!
I absolutely Love”MaryJanes Farm”!
I love the old designs of the feed sacks, I have quilts and old aprons, pot holders that were my mothers and grandmothers and others I have purchased!
It brings you back to a not easier time but to a maybe more appreciative, more homier more comfortable time in life! I love creating things, pillows, curtains using old fabrics. It bring peace and a smile to see and feel them!
I love the nostalgia in Mary Jane’s farm because I always wanted to be a farmgirl, and now I am in my 70’s. I never had the time or energy to have a farm while working full time all of my adult life. I now have two goats, nine chickens, a rabbit and a cat. When I’m not doing chores on my little farm I am helping friends with their animals. Life is good! Love all the stories, wonderful old ways of cooking and sewing and doing things in your magazine. Got my first cast iron pan and bake your recipes. Loved the darning article! And all those personal farm girl stories!
My Mom would have the neighbor lady sew flour sack dresses for my sister and myself!
I have a baby doll tiny quilt that my Grandma made for my doll out of flour sacks! I have loved that ole’ doll quilt for years! Now as a Great Grandma myself for 3 small granddaughters, I would love to make all three of them a tiny flour sack quilt for their dolls!
Sandra J Penner-Fox
2003 W Timbercreek Circle
Wichita Ks 67204
316-706-6565
I love seeing the nostalgic pieces in MaryJane’s magazine especially the article on the flour sacks because its all about resourceful women stretching their skills learning to sew for their families when there was no money for clothes at all. The flour companies who turned their white sacks into useful prints actually gave women hope.
A friend told me her mother used to send her as a child into the stacks of sacks to look for matching print sacks so she’d be sure to have enough fabric to make outfits for her family.
We got flour and feed sacks even in early 50s. I learned to sew from my mom with them. She made our dresses and I made doll clothes and table cloths and napkins. Made pillowcases also. I loved my dresses, skirts and blouses she made me. I love Mary Jane’s Farm magazine for articles like this and craft ideas also.
Enjoy the recipes, too
As a young girl I spent many happy hours at my aunt Louise & uncle Busters farmhouse. From gathering eggs from my aunts beloved chicken coop, to pestering my uncle as he milked the cows, helping to churn some fresh ice cream from berries from across the road, these are just a few of my cherished memories.
I love Mary Jane’s Farm because it reminds me of the lazy Saturday afternoons I used to spend with my Mom. We would look through your magazine and stop on every page to admire the crafts, gardens, and general aesthetic of your world. Every time I read one of your magazines I’m transported back to those simpler times. My Mother and I always loved Vintage style, and making dresses from Vintage sewing patterns. It would be such a joy to my Mother and me to sew, craft, and just admire these precious Flour sack fabrics!
P.S. Your magazine is the best!
I have my grandmother’s wedding quilt. Each square of the quilt was made by a family member and all from flour sack material. I love the ingenuity these women used to create their own personal square for my grandmother’s quilt. I would love to win a stack of flour sack material to make a quilt. Thank you so much for the chance to win and thank you for your awesome magazine.
I was definitely born in wrong century! Flour sacks have a charm all their own-nothing like the store bought fabric available today. I would rather have 1 piece of flour sack fabric to two pieces of modern quilting fabric any day! There is just something about the look of a piece of flour sack fabric – I call it “innocence”. This quilter would cherish a stack of flour sacks!
Nothing my “quick edit” couldn’t fix.
I love vintage items. Furniture, books, glassware, etc . For the stories they tell. When I grew up in 50’s my friends had dresses made of flour sacks. I never had one as my parents were not farmers. My current project is to have old, well loved furniture and flour sack curtains in my present home.
I look forward to receiving my “Mary Jane’s Farm”. I feel that I can connect with many things you have in the magazine. Some things I relate to maybe that I have done or wished to do. Some things are things I remember as a child. I grew up on a farm helping with chores, milking cows and doing field work. Mary Jane’s Farm magazine takes me back to our Sunday afternoon outing with my older brother and younger sister walking in the woods. We would take a sandwich with us and a quart jar of water or milk in a brown paper bag. We thought we were very adventuresome. The whole lay out of the magazine is inviting and easy to look at over and over again. Thank you and keep up the great work.
My dear mother first introduced your lovely magazine to me when it first came out.I save each and every copy and reread the old ones.I can’t bear to.part with them. I am buying new file folders to store them.
I have the old heart ❤ of an old fashioned farmer girl 👩🌾. Dad taught me how to garden,can ,make homemade wine
Mom taught me how to bake and cook. I love crafting and have an Art Degree
I’m also a Pediatric RN and take care of special needs kids.Love animals and we’re raising chickens and ducks now.I would love to win this beautiful retro fabric for sure!!!! I am envisioning all the beautiful crafting and sewing I can do with them.I can make gorgeous tops and dresses 😍. Thank you 😊 Mary Jane for being here 😘
I was so inspired by your June/July article on the history of using flour sacks. I have sewn for many years and would love to sew something creative using flour sacks.
I have never seen flour sacks in prints and colors and would like the opportunity to create something unique to show in a future issue of Mary Jane’s.
My mother had a real affection for the flour sack patterned fabrics. As a child who went through the depression and losing her own mother during that time they held tender memories for her. We would search quilt shops for “1930’s” fabrics that reminded her of the flour sack dresses. Thanks for a chance to enter! I love your magazine and just recently bought your bread book! Thank you, jill judge
I love Mary Jane’s Farm because my sister and mom and I all read it together and connect over the wonderful and varied articles, whether it’s a sewing project (my mom and sister), a delicious recipe (my sister and I), or a fun story in the Readers Write section (often all three of us). My favorite articles, though, are the ones that spark a memory from my mom’s childhood. She doesn’t remember her mother using flour sacks to make clothes but she embroidered beautiful flowers and other things on the plain ones, some of which we still have today.
My neighbor who recently passed gave me my first issue of Mary Jane’s Farm and I was hooked and ordered it right away. Every article reminds me of not only how we all should strive to live but it also reminds me that it is possible since it was once done.Thank you for creating this wonderful magazine. I love flour sack towels and would love to win but if I don’t good Luck to all.
A coworker at the public library brought her latest copy of the magazine in for me to read. The page with the information on flour-sack fabric caught my eye, because I’m researching history related to my late Grandmother. Before she had children she worked in a woolen suit factory. When she became a mother she used her tailoring knowledge to make clothing for her children. My aunts remember the flour-sack fabric and prints.
I’m a quilter and the cheery 30s flour sack designs have always intrigued me! What fun it would be to create with vintage flour-sack fabric!!
It reminded me of going home to my grandpa’s place and visiting his neighbor where she had of quilts made from old flour sacks. Lots of great memories of small country town life in the Midwest. It was such a special place and simpler time. Bathing outside in a wash tub. Having to prime the pump for water and going to the outhouse
My dear Mother Ruth, her sister, my Aunt Margie & my Grandma nicknamed Brownie for her big brown eyes are all gone now. Their way of life that you find joy in each day, in each simple task and help others along the way lives on. Whenever I make food for my children & grandchildren, as I stand at my kitchen counter, chopping, sifting or rolling out dough I think of them & all they did to teach me the way to lead my life. The heirlooms they left, one pretty teacup from my great grandparents china, the fruitcake tin full of buttons, the wooden slatted picnic baskets that carried food on holidays, to church dinners & potlucks. And the sewing baskets with Rick rack & quilt squares cut from flower sacks from days
gone by. These all fill my heart with joy and plant my feet firmly on the ground about how to find joy and purpose in life!
I grew up a farmgirl, but I didn’t always appreciate the life lessons until much later in life. I appreciate MaryJane’s Farm magazine for the memories it brings back to the sometimes simpler yet enriching farm life that means when we crawled into bed each night we knew we put in our best efforts and did a good day’s work.
My family comes from a rural town in TN. I remember all the stories my grandmother would tell me about growing up in an extremely poor family. She told me so much about homesteading. She currently suffers from dementia and all of her memories are now locked away. All I have are the stories she shared (and some pretty great recipes), but your magazine helps me build a bridge to provide additional context to her stories. Every time I read your magazine, I somehow feel closer to her.
I feel like I was born in the wrong time period sometimes. I love reading and learning about history. I’m fascinated and inspired by how people worked together to help each other through hard times. How women did their best to find ways to bring and make beautiful things from what they had around the house or barn. I know it wasn’t simple, but it seems it wasn’t as complicated as we make things now. I love the feeling of wonder when I read about how things were done. I’m the keeper of family heirlooms and respect them so much. They kept them around for so many years, I can’t let them disappear. If it was important to them, we should carry them forward. Thank you for keeping these things alive in your magazine, and carrying forward those things that were a way of life.
I have subscribed to Mary Jane’s Farm for years. It makes me feel connected to those before me and something I can pass on to others.
I love vintage looking fabrics. Make aprons & double sided tablecloths. THANK YOU. enjoy my subscription to MaryJane’s Farm.
I love your magazine & the place it takes me to.
Away from the crazy world we ‘re living in. The flour sacks & fabrics remind me of my grandmother and Aunt who would use them for everything in simpler times.
I love MaryJanesFarm not just because the photography is beautiful, but it’s my life now.
I have been looking all over the internet for vintage flour sacks to make curtains for my kitchen. I’m looking for a pattern similar to my Grandmother’s curtains she made from flour sacks when they still lived on the farm. The memories of the farm have never left me- I loved the hand pump at the sink, the wood burning cook stove, the chickens, cows, the lilacs by the kitchen door…even the Outhouse!
My husband thinks I should have been born a generation earlier! After talking about my dream of moving off grid and homesteading for years we are finally THERE! It took 10 years of talking and planning but now it’s a reality. We haul water ( common here) we have no electricity and use oil lamps ( some from my Grandparents farm) I cook on a woodburning cookstove, can everything and love my root cellar!
It’s a work in progress and we still have a ways to go. We bought a sawmill so hauling logs and cutting them into lumber for building takes a lot of time and hard work. We just wish we would have started sooner when we were 10 years younger but the time wasn’t right until now. We ‘retired’ early when we decided we didn’t want to work just to pay bills, sold our house and started from the ground up and have no debt. What a feeling of freedom!
We work hard,but we are working together toward our dream and it’s satisfying to know we’re doing this ourself with our own hands. I never thought I’d be helping to build a house at 60! And loving it!
We just have a small garden in now, no time yet for a large one, and lost our chickens to a predator and won’t get anymore animals until we’re done building but hopefully soon.
Would-of, should-of, could-of IF I’d only kept my Mom’s box of vintage flour sack material, I would make a creative quilt to use. I find inspiration from your magazines especially with your multi-talented daughter-in-law, Ashley and now Dori Troutman’s article “Creativity Takes Courage.” MaryJane I love your magazine!!
Hello there! I have to confess, as a southern farm girl, and an active,ambitious teenager( I’m eighteen), I find your magazines quite addictive; not to mention irresistible! They are one of the few magazines that actually teach me interesting facts, cultivate my creativity, and inspire me to dream bolder!
I connect with your Mary Jane’s farm magazine deeply because it allows farm girls everywhere to unite, experiment with new things, and make our planet a better, healthier place to live. It also ehoes back to a bygone era, when our grandparents and great-grandparents were young, and still learning how to thrive despite the world’s challenges.
I pray that your work is blessed and continues to grow in amazing ways! Know that you ARE making a difference world wide!
With love,
Sarah Q. Wiede
I am 14, and I live on a farm in Arkansas. I love to read Mary Jane’s farm magazine because there is always something new and interesting to learn in each new issue! They are like the modern day, farm girl equivalent of the vintage Women’s Household magazines from the 1950-70s( that I love to collect!).
This year I’ve started learning how to sew / read patterns! I collect vintage patterns and material , and sew on a 1950s Singer sewing machine. It’s name is “Nancy Drew”! So much fun!
Sincerely, Corinne Wiede
I feel akin to the nostalgia of Mary Jane’s Farm because I was from the time I was a little toddler on Long Island and Mom had a truck farm business along the Jerico Turnpike and I would be there in my birthday suit cause I didn’t like to be in clothes, waving to the passers by…there is a picture of me sitting among a huge cabbage that was as big as I was…during that time there were many potato farms along the Jerico…my parents moved my brother and I(we were adopted) when I was 5 to an almost 300 acre farm in Smyrna, Delaware where Dad grew potatoes…It was the Jurgens farm and many a Summer in our “tween years”we were walking the fields pulling out the wild mustard plants between the rows of the potato plants…it was hot sweaty work, but I appreciated the farm more now and miss the fresh vegetables, sweet varieties of home grown berries and the fruit trees abundance of produce they grew each season much more now than ever before. I still can remember the smell of the burlap bags that the potatoes were placed in that were sold…also the rotten potato fights my brother and I threw at each other and the forts we made out of the piles of paper bags that Dad had bought and how upset Dad would get at the mess we made of the barn
..also the times when a stray mother cat would birth her kittens in the older barn attic… How we take for granted of the sweet momories of those bygone days!!! Your magazines bring me back to those moments of pure nostalgia…I look so much to receiving the newest magazine!!! Keep up the good work of producing a really wonderful view of long past memories I cherish…I do remember hearing about the Feedsack bags over the years but never saw any…
I’m 71 and grew up in a small community where everyone knew each other and helped each other out. All were poor and yet rich, too. We saved everything and used and reused and past it on to someone else. Some of these were fabrics and recipes and stories told over and over. I treasure these times and the feed sack doll cloths, dresses and shirts were not only needed but beautiful clothes for church. To have some again to put in a memory quilt for my daughters with the story behind this cloth would be a dream come true. Thank you for my years with Mary Jane magazine I wait for the new one with bells on . A treasure in these hard times indeed.
In the early days of WWII my grandmother was still using a wood stove. She baked bread for the week in the oven checking temperature by putting her hand in the oven and knew when it was just right. Still remember the bread baked, slathered with homemade butter and a pinch of sugar. The flour came in beautiful sacks of all colors. Dresses were made as were aprons and curtains. One of those curtains I believe is what I have to remember that time. It was found in a cupboard my parents had which I had restored.
In reading this magazine it brings back so many fond memories to my mind. This is one of the reasons I continue renewing this educational, inspirational, farm based magazine for women. This issue reminded me of the depression and how life was so different and challenging for everyone.
My mother spoke of hard times to my siblings and myself, when she was a young girl growing up, as if life then was normal for her and her family. She would tell me of wearing flour sack dresses made by my grandmother. When a bag of flour was bought she and her siblings would wait patiently to see the mysterious pattern of cloth appear after being washed.
Even my husband said he had shirts made with flour sacks. He is only five years older then myself and he was proud too say he wore clothes made of flour sacks also. Wow, those sacks were made for quite a long time! I wore only store bought dresses. I’m glad the trend changed because my mother was not a seamstress. I delight in sewing and have found flour sacks among my grandmother’s belonging’s. Oh, how thrilled I am to make more memories and think of new uses for those old decorated flour sacks of my grandmothers.