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My mother was an expert at sewing and knitting. She could make anything. She grew up in dire poverty, and had to learn this stuff for survival.

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A ‘survival’ tale from my family- my grandmother grew up ‘family rich’ (LOTS of siblings - 12 .... took 3 wives ... they kept dying in childbirth) and $$ poor. She married (arranged marriage) & had 4 girls. With no sons, the girls were all treated like boys on the farm, picking cotton (yup, you heard that right!), hoeing corn, growing canteloupe - picking, packing, knocking crates together, and running a dairy. They had a large garden (Granny canned) & butchered their own cows, hogs, Granny would wring an old hen’s neck for Sunday’s lunch & she sold eggs in town for some small cash. Eggs were a once-a-week treat because they needed the money from selling them. Oatmeal was the breakfast meal (she made The Best oatmeal, with fresh, unpasturized milk from the cows)& she was a ‘master’ at cinnamon rolls & homemade bread (churned the butter, too).

Anyway, back in those days, the feed came in cloth sacks printed with designs. The trick was finding enough sacks with the same design, but when she had enough, Granny would cut a pattern out of newspaper (the pattern was designed in her head), cut out the pieces from the sacks, then sew up dresses for her girls. She had an old “treadle” sewing machine and I can still see her little feet on that treadle, working it back/forth & sewing away. She made wedding dresses for at least two of the 4 girls - beaded, lace, very detailed (still using the treadle machine!). She was a talented woman in many ways (only had an 8th grade education, as high as schools in her community went, back in those days). She was also the mechanic on the farm machinery .... if something broke down, Granddad was hollering “Mama!” for her to come work on it. While he had no mechanical ability, he was a super hard, energetic worker - on the “go” all the time. ‘Necessity’ was a driving force, back in those days. Both of my Grandparents pretty much worked themselves to death. Days visiting on their farm are some of my best childhood memories & the older I get, the more I admire them for the life they lived.

Mom used a treadle machine for years. I don’t recall much about my childhood, but I do remember when she was pregnant with one of my younger brothers, and she was piecing a quilt. She couldn’t treadle because of her “condition”, so I sat across from her, treadling, while she did the sewing.

And I understand that treadle machines still are the ones that sell the most, as sewers third-world countries use them for industry. (Don’t know if that’s true or not.)