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 love Mary Jane magazine because it has simple recipes, a lot of them using cast iron which my husband and I collect and use. I also love the crafts and quilting in the Mary Jane magazine. I live out in the country and love the gardening section. Like Mary Jane herself we also have cows that we raise and also chickens. we just love the country life which is something that Mary Jane magazine reflects and I especially love her old Airstream campers, someday I’d like to get one myself.
My grandma had alot of aprons made from feedbacks. My grandpa was a pig farmer and used alot of feed. I really adored those pieces of fabric. When her aprons got to worn she would tear them into straps and use them in her rag rugs. Never anything wasted was her motto!
I never saw any flour sackcloth but I heard my friend talk about the feed/flour sack bags with the pretty designs while she was attempting to show me how to quilt. ( the quilting was not a take). She said that one time she went with her dad to buy feed. She dashed to see the feed sacks. She found what she wanted but it was in a high level. She told her dad which one she wanted. To her amazement, her dad pulled out the bag she desired without a single word. She said it made her happy for two reasons. She got her fabric but even more important to her, her dad took the time to get that desired bag just to please her.
I connect with nostalgia of Mar Janes Farm because my grandmother raised me in the ways of the past and I loved it. She often said I was born in the wrong century. I love to garden,can, weave, quilt, spin and do bobbin lace. I love to sit on the porch and listen to the birds and feel the breeze just like I did on her porch. I was very blessed to have been raised to love to work.
I love everything about MaryJane’s magazine. I love the nostalgia recipes, crafts and gardening section. Nostalgic quilt fabric is my favorite! How I wish I could go back in time when life was simpler !
First off, thank you for this opportunity! My mother told us about flour sack material used for little girls dresses. My mother was a quilter that used 1930’s fabrics almost exclusively, said it reminded her of her childhood home. I now have her fabric and a quilt, memories close to my heart.
I grew up in a lower middle class Cajun family. I was the first in my family to ever graduate from college and proceed to even higher education. I am the oldest of 5 children so I had my share of changing diapers, babysitting, even cooking dinner, and housecleaning up until the day I left for college. It was never part of my future to consider that it was ok for a woman to plant a garden, bake bread, or work a homestead. Instead I made my father proud and became a CPA. I raised my 3 children and when they were gone and on their own I slowed down my work week and took a Master Gardener’s class. One of the older ladies in my class became my mentor, showing my that fun began in the garden and then in the kitchen. She introduced me to Mary Jane’s Farm and I have been a fan ever since. My “inner farm girl” comes out now and shocks my friends but I feel I am finally finding my true self. My sewing machine hums out Christmas projects and my hands are now stained from garden produce. Thank you for the example you have shown me and the inspiration. Please continue.
I was fortunate and blessed to grow up with the loving role models of BOTH sets of grandparents, as well as my parents, in my life. We didn’t have a lot of money, but we had gardens (flowers and vegetables), loved picking berries, fishing for brook trout, and hunting for deer. Mother Earth gave us all we needed, including knowledge that was handed down from generation to generation. Processing wild meat, canning fruits and vegetables, sewing our own clothing, gathering our own firewood, baking wonderful Finnish-American foods, and making our Christmas gifts by hand. Learning how to sew on a treadle sewing machine, how to knit and crochet, and Grandma’s gift of rag-rug making . . . all of these gifts have blessed the lives of my siblings and myself. I thank the dear Lord above, for all of this. Call it nostalgia? I call it “family”.
Your magazine reminds me of many things from my childhood and especially my mom. Mom was raised on a farm. She often talked of many things I read about in your magazine. I love the crafts, recipes, and stories.
It isn’t nostalgia at all. It’s a reminder of how to live well, and it’s a snapshot of how I actually do live; growing good food in a beautiful garden, caring for my neighbors and community, showing kindness and feeding the chickens. It reminds me to keep doing what I’m doing and just keep getting better at it.
I love reading your magazine! It takes me back to simpler days. I have a collection of flour sack towels passed down from my great grandmother! Love them dearly!!
I love your magazine. I didn’t grow up a farm girl, I was a city girl from New Mexico. I listened to my grandfather’s stories of his childhood days in rural Missouri starting in 1910. For me those were days of family. Of growing your own food. Of making your family clothes and quilts. Of neighbor helping neighbor. It was a life I wanted. Still do. So when I got married I wanted all those things but sadly didn’t achieve all of it. I can a good part of my families food, garden, quilt, try to help my neighbors, and love my family dearly. Even at age 65 I still strive to obtain what I read in your magazine. A way of life that God is helping me fulfill.
I connect with MaryJanes Farms to interact with all my Farmgirl Sisters I have met over the years.
I can not imagine my life without them or MaryJanes Farm.
Thank you,
Debbie
I connect with the content of Mary Jane’s Farm magazine because I grew up on a small cattle farm in the Midwest. I especially like craftiness of the magazine and helpful hints for the day to day.
Every issue has something that reminds me of my childhood at my grandparents home. Food was grown in the garden and nothing was wasted. My grandmother sewed all of our clothes and we learned to embroider at an early age. I long for those simple days in my complex days full of technology and busy-ness. Your magazine transports me there issue after issue. What a gift!
My grandmother grew up in rural Texas during the depression and married a honky-tonk man. They divorced when my mother and uncle were very young during an Era when divorce was not common. My grandmother had to leave my mother with my great-grandmother on the Texas farm while she went to beauty school to learn a living. The farm was self-sufficient and they relied on themselves to raise what they ate including collecting eggs for breakfast each morning. My great-mother made their clothes at home from material that was available, including feed sack material. My great-grandmother was the person the local doctor asked to help him with his calls to patients, and she took in over 13 local orphans during the depression and war Era. Eventually my grandmother finished beauty school, and came back for my mother and uncle. She started her own business. It is the self-sufficiency of my great-grandmother and grandmother that I think of when I read about the farming and craft stories in Mary Jane’s. My mother ran her own business, and so have I. In my opinion, Mary Jane’s provides a connection to a strength of spirit found in rural America, and makes me proud of the women in my family who over came adversity to support family and community.
I love MaryJane’s magazine for the recipe’s, crafts and gardening section. I’m a country girl and Love quilting! My favorite fabrics are feed sacks! I wish I could go back in time when life was simpler !
I grew up on a farm in the 30s and 40s. We had very few clothes and they were all homemade. My mother worked very hard to keep food and clothes for her 4 kids.she had big gardens chickens and made biscuits twice a day. We used lots of flour and a blessing when the patterned sacks came to be. They were all so pretty she would pick what she could use to make my dresses and my brothers shirts At about same time chicken feed also was in printed sacks. Two of those would make her a dress. She made aprons, bonnets underwear all out of the pretty flour sacks. When she passed away she left me with a quilt top, most every square was a scrap from a flour sack. Lots of them I could remember the dress I wore. I put that quilt top together and hand quilted it into a real treasure of memories for me. A prized possession. When looking for quilting material I find myself picking little flower patterns thinking they look similar to those flour sacks. Thank you so much for the article loved it.
My Mother had kitchen curtains made out of flour sack material and also matching cabinet curtains.I remember loving the look as a child on our big farm house kitchen. My sister and I made doll clothes from the scraps! I love your magazine and finally got a subscription last year! I read it from cover to cover! I love to craft and your magazine always has ideas for me! One of the few magazines I save❤️
I have been a follower of Mary Jane since her first book. Everything from the crafts, recipes and the stories are what draw me in and touch my heart. I am always inspired and find something to make in each issue. Thank you!
My mother was raised in poverty. We threw very little away. This left us girls with wonderful memories and priceless items and generations of family photos and recipes, and lessons on how to use, repair and reuse things. Thanks Mom. This magazine brings back wonderful memories. Thank you Mary Jane.
I have loved the magazine for years! The sewing and quilting segments are my favorite. I have been sewing since my grandma taught me over 50 years ago. I love making useful and beautiful items for family and friends. I have made tea cozy’s from flour sack fabrics in the past. I have so many ideas swimming in my head about what could be made from these flour sacks! Thanks for such a wonderful creative magazine, I am delighted every time it shows up in my mailbox!
This magazine is wonderful!! It has everything and covers every topic that is interesting to me. Quilting, cooking, writing and articles on all topics that most women think about. I never pick-up an issue that i don’t see a recipe I want to try, a book I want to read and was so excited about being able to write something for the magazine and submitting it. I love to sew, quilt, read and write and this magazine has it all. I make sure I pass along to all my friends and find wonderful ideas for gifts for friend and family every time I open it!! This issue provided me with a Christmas gift already and the possibility of taking a creative writing course too. Thank you so much.
The beauty and simplicity of Mary Jane’s Farm is a reflection of the memories my momma shared with me of her childhood. As a child of the Depression, she developed (and passed on to me) a kind of practical creativity- using what’s available, even if it is someone else’s cast-off, to make what you need and to make it beautiful to boot. The articles, stories, and pictures remind me of her and inspire me to value the simple beauty of a life lived fully and well.
I enjoy reading Mary Jane’s Farm from front to back in each issue–the great ideas and recipes are inspiring. I love vintage. My husband is building me a “she shed” that I am furnishing with my Grandparents old bedroom and kitchen furniture. In an area that is finished in old barnwood and tin, I have an old wood cookstove. I plan to use curtains made from my Grandmother’s old flour sacks in this area, but don’t have enough flour sacks to finish the rest of the window coverings. Love you flour sack article in the magazine I received today.
I love all things vintage. I enjoy reading about simpler times. I think I am an old soul person. Restoring and repurposing. Rescuing old quilts and giving them new life. Displaying my great grandparents photos (who I never met) rather than storing them in a box. These are all things I’m passionate about. Your magazine speaks to all these things. Back to basics.
I connect with the nostalgia of MaryJanes Farm for many reasons: I love Cast iron cookware, gardening, sewing, cooking, baking, painting, learning, healthing (I know, not a verb…yet) reading, upcycling, designing, and drawing. And MaryJanes Farm explores all of these life areas in a fresh, fun, environmentally friendly, and soulful manner.
I connect with the nostalgia of MaryJanes Farm because it reminds me of my Granny and all the “old ways”. I’ve learned a lot of the old ways from Granny, but at 95 years old, there are a lot of things she can no longer teach me. MaryJanes Farm fills in a lot of those gaps, plus brings me a lot of “new” things too, things that will be the “old ways” one day for my daughters.
Your magazine takes me back to simpler times and yet still connects to the present day. The article on feed sacks caught my eye. I’m a quilter and have been trying to collect feed sacks so I can make a quilt and some pin cushions. I want to show and tell my grandchildren about the past. Thank you for a great magazine. Keep doing what you do.
I love your magazine for the crafts, recipes and farm girl articles. I love needle arts, reading, and gardening and this magazine has it all. I could read it from cover to cover. It is a wonderful escape from the world today.
I love the simplicity of a life lived in harmony with the earth. I wish I had known my grandmothers. They were both very courageous women. One raised a large family while her husband had to sometimes be gone long times for his work. The other traveled alone as a widow from Ireland with a 2 year old and a 3 month old baby! MaryJanes Farm inspires me to look back at what might not have been simpler times but, perhaps simpler and more direct ways of handling everyday problems in more creative and more courageous manners.
First of all I really enjoy MaryJanes Farm magazine. Brings back lots of memories. My Grandmother did a lot of sewing, crochet and so much more. She made aprons with the sack cloths and used pieces for quilts or to cover homemade pillows. When worn out nothing wasted, she would make the rag rugs too. I have a couple of them, one not quit finished so I’ve been trying to finish it myself. Love the colors and simplicity. Thank you for bring back simple life but so meaningful. Gods blessings to you and your family. 🤗
There has always been and always will be the opportunity to learn and use what we have been given in life. We have lived on a small lake for 45 years; just a strip of land that we try to make the most of. Vegetable gardens and berries. Fishing and hunting nearby. Raised 5 children here and they are all resourceful and are teaching their young ones a life of making the most of what is at hand. MaryJanes Farm, brings memories and often new things that continue to make life better. like her motto says…eat better, feel better and live better.
I love Mary Janes Farm magazine, it truly brings back many wonderful memories of growing up on our little country farm in Wisconsin! My dad grew the most incredible vegetable gardens while my mom tended to her beautiful flower gardens. Growing up in rural WI we didn’t have a lot of money but we did have a roof over our heads & lots of good homegrown food to eat. We had a small farm with milking cows. Pigs, goats, chickens as well as our pet dog, Cubby a beautiful borderline collie, cats & my rabbits snowball & cottontail.
My mom & grandmother were wonderful seamstresses & made all of our clothes growing up which is the main reason for me writing this because I read about flour sacks & a chance to win a stack of vintage flour-sack fabric & brought back precious memories of our handmade clothes which were made from these beautiful printed flour sacks. Your June-July issue just arrived today in my mailbox & I was so excited after reading it I had to call my older sister & tell her all about it and I told her I was going to order a subscription for her as I knew she would enjoy your magazine as much as I am! Thank you so much for for creating this awesome magazine!
As if I didn’t love Mary Jane’s farm enough but now you have painted a picture that I could only imagine before.
As a lot of you, my Mother grew up during the days of wearing feed sack clothes. I imagined rough beige itchy bags that smelled of corn! She didn’t talk about it much until I was old enough to appreciate it… like 40?
Somewhere buried deep in a cedar chest there is a quilt made of her feed sack clothes but she was never able to get possession of it. We don’t know where it ended up.
She was raised on a farm and even I (as a child) got to experience the beautiful life of a farmer. I enjoyed “slopping the hogs” , brushing the horses, milking the cows on a “t” stool. What a delight to float a watermelon in the milk cooler! We dried apples for pies, made cracklings’ and always had a plate of country ham and biscuits on the stove. We raised a big garden full of vegetables and I surely thought, if I wasn’t helping my Grandfather dig in the earth and water the plants by a quart jar, the garden would definitely fail.
Neighbors would sit on the porch and visit and we would make homemade ice cream. As kids we fought over who got to turn the crank of the ice cream maker next! As the sun set we would catch lightning bugs and put them in jars with holes on top. It was a very compatible game to see who could catch the most.
I can still close my eyes and see those days, those fairytale times for me. I imagine my Momma in those beautiful feed sack clothes thanks to you. I don’t have to picture her in a dreary scratchy sad way. She LOVES flour sacks and 30’ fabric. To be honest with you, I didn’t know flour-sack fabric was available! I made her a 30’s quilt last year and I’ve only been quilting about 3 years.
Your magazine shows me pictures that bring memories back to life, makes my mouth water for both new and forgotten recipes;Reminds me of a simpler way of life; Brings a big smile on my face when it welcomes me at the mailbox! I look forward a quiet comfy place to get lost in between the pages of today and yesterday. Thank you for bringing me this joy.
Blessings!
Love your magazine! There are so many reminders of how much simpler life can be and I needed this. Thank you. The flour sack fabric was used in quilts that my grandmother made and my husband’s grandma made. They were mixed with old sheet fabric and work shirt fabric to make beautiful works of art that are still useful today!
I would love to win this fabric. My Mama and her 11 siblings were raised in Casey County, Ky. Mama was born in 1930. And she grew up with flour sack dress, she use to tell us kids about how it was back then, their family worked hard for everything, share croppers. But she went to school until 8th grade. For the most part they were happy. Mama was 90 when she died(1 1/2 yes ago). Miss her a lot, but she and Daddy raised us with faith in God and each other. I would like to try to make some clothes for my grandkids. Thank you for reading my letter.m
It is fascinating to me to study the role fabric has played in our history. As an artist myself I was immediately drawn to the article about flour sacks and how they were used during the war years. the patterns are wonderful and the story about them is so interesting. I love that the flour sack companies responded by making more beautiful patterns on their sacks for people to use in their projects once the flour was gone. I love everything about Mary Jane’s Farm magazine and as an artist I especially enjoy all the vintage illustrations throughout the magazine. The whole magazine is a work of art! While other magazines get put into the recycle bin, I can’t bring myself to part with a single issue of Mary Jane’s farm. Thank you for such a beautiful and informative magazine, you speak to my soul in every issue.
Love learning that flour sack companies paid attention to beautiful patterns as a way to please the girls and women who were sewing up dresses and more. This is so caring and kind.
PS. I save all of my Mary Jane magazines as well.
I have always connected with all things vintage. Sometimes I think I was born in the wrong era. That’s why I enjoy Mary Jane’s farm so much. Even though I live in the suburbs I still enjoy raising chickens gardening and many handcrafts etc.❣️
I have loved your magazine since the first time I placed one in my hands. The pages show how to live simply and joyfully without waste. The ideas harken back to a time when everything was used and then found new life to be used again. The flour sacks are the perfect expression of this lifestyle! I would love to own some for my own projects. Thanks for all you do to better my world!
I really enjoyed reading the article about flour sacks. I’ve collected several sacks over the years. I also have several that belonged to my Mother In law. I’ve been making aprons for a craft sale we have each year at our Family Life Ctr. at our church, in July. Flour sack would make some beautiful one. I’m afraid I’d want to buy them all. I love old stuff. Antiquing has been my passion for many years. I also enjoyed all the old farm implements in this months issue. Love your magazine.
I love your magazine beautiful magazine.
What I like best is everything is in color.
I’m 81 yrs young and would like to make a flower sack
skirt for my granddaughter and myself.
Peace, love, Joy.
I love the flour sack dresses! My great grandmother use to wear little dresses made out of the flour sacks and when they wore out, whatever scraps were left she made a quilt. I still have the quilt and it is used a little but I do not it to wear out. So fun to look at those little pieces of fabric and think about Momma’s Cooper life back then. Such an amazing woman. She was a true Farmgirl.
I am a new subscriber to Mary Jane’s Farm. I have enjoyed the nostalgia of the magazine so much! The flour sack article really drew me in. It reminded me of Grandma’s and Mom’s aprons. I love all of the vintage fabrics, and would love to see them made into pillows or pillowcases. There is something about the closeness you feel to days gone by when you lay your head down on or near a vintage piece of fabric. How fun to combine flour sack fabric pillows with the pillowcases my Grandma hand embroidered, and her beautifully hand done doilies!! Now that both of these wonderful ladies are gone, I always search for things to bring a memory of them back to me.
It takes me back to a time that was so simple or so I thought I get a feeling inside that’s pure pleasure of reading and seeing things that I remembered a time that will always be treasured an escape from the way this world is now. I’m not a very good sewer but my friend is and I would love to give her the fabric to make some thing wonderful.
I love Mary Janes farm. Honestly, it brings me back to times with my grandmother. I learned so much from her. I didn’t know it then, but I do now what an impact she made on my life living more simply. I remember making Barbie dresses from her old feedbacks in the 70s. The prints were so pretty. Those are long gone now, but to able to own some of the original patterns would be a awesome thing. Thanks for your magazine.
I am not sure what headline caught my eye on a Mary Jane’s Farm magazine, but it reminded me of my Mom and her love of making violet jelly. I picked up that issue and have subscribed ever since then. Your articles often remind me of my Mom and her stories about her family and home country of Switzerland. Sometimes as I read your articles a smile pops up, a sigh and even a tear. But all with good memories. My Mom enjoyed crocheting and knitting. My husband’s Grandmother was a quilter and I too enjoy quilting. Many of Gram’s quilts were pieced from old shirts, pj’s, dresses and aprons. What wonderful memories pop up from the nostalgia in each issue!!
Mary Jane inspires my creative side whether it be cooking, sewing or gardening. She’s an amazing women to have created such an empire on the basic needs of all women. Life is short and we need to do more of what you talk about in your articles. Exercise is key to a good life and I feel like you inspire people to get moving. I’m very much a believer in staying fit.
I have a small collection of feedsack fabric. I display it on a rack and the colors are beautiful. It’s like gold to me.
I’m a new subscriber to Mary Jane’s Farm. In the June/July issue the Flour Sacks article made me think of a conversation I had with my momma. We were looking at a photo of my mom and her sister, dressed exactly alike .She told me my grandmother had made those little dresses by hand( she had no sewing machine) and the fabric was from flour sacks. Reflecting on this memory made my heart ❤️ full!
As a quilter, vegetable & herb gardener, beekeeper, mom to two horses and two cats, lover of cooking and baking I simply love Mary Janes magazine as it enlightens me to various subjects from philosophy to gardening, crafts, nature and the vintage life of the past. I have used and coveted feed sack material in my quilting as it reminds me of my long lineage of makers in my family. Happy memories of growing up with craftiness and the love for the outdoors and all things created by God around me.
I love Mary Jane’s Farm because it encompasses so much of what makes me happy and nostalgic! So much if what our country was based on and had grown up on. I sometimes think I live happily in the past even though my present is full of life! I would LOVE TO WIN the flour sacks and make fun things for all my grandchildren and friends and family!
Thank you for the continued inspiration!