Sewing Rags

My aunt Mary had a loom. I suppose she made other things, but I remember the rugs that she made on this loom. I was interesting how she would feed the varied supplies and shift levers and tamp things into place as she created these rugs.
Aunt Mary was related to me because my grandmother and Mary were sisters. And another way she is related is that her husband is a son of my grandfather's brother. In other words, two Dearholt sisters married Hess'. One Hess was the nephew of the other.
Back to Mary's rugs. Mary would make the rugs using homemade yarn. When someone wanted a rug made, Mary would make the rugs and keep half for herself and half would go to the person that made the yarn.
My mom taught me to sew the yarn. I loved doing this. We would use old clothes. First, you would cut away all the hems around the outside of the big pieces of cloth. Then you would figure out which way the remaining cloth would make the best strips and cut nicks into the edge about one inch apart. Next, you would tear at each of the nicks and the cloth would make these strips one inch wide.
The sewing came next. You needed to sew the ends together to make a continuous one inch strip. You would place one end over the other and fold a third of the overlap from each side to make three double layers. Next you sew onto the beginning of the overlap and sew to the end of the overlap, reverse to the beginning and then sew forward to the end again. When you got to the end, you would stop sewing just as you were about to go off the edge. This allowed you to sew from one joint to the next without raising the presser foot.
It was fun to keep going with more and more yarn pushed off the back of the sewing machine onto the floor. Some times the pile would get all the way up to the level of the sewing table.
After sewing the ends together, we had to tug at each place the sewing machine ran off the one seam onto the next to break the string. We would roll the end product into a big ball of yarn.
A few years ago, my mom pulled one of these old worn rugs from a drawer and presented it to me. She explained that it was the last one known to exist. She felt I was the person that deserved to keep it since I had sewed more rags into yarn than anyone else. It is one of my prized possessions. The last I know, my cousin Dorla ended up with aunt Mary's loom.

Blueberries & Grandma's Chicken

One of my favorite memories is going picking blueberries with my grandparents. Grandpa knew all the right places to find the blueberries and grandma could pack the best picnic lunch in the whole wide world.
We would hike across the field from our home to Grandpa Hess' home. When we got there, grandma would be busy setting out all the things she knew we would need. She would pack a bunch of jars of water and arrange them in a cardboard box with towels between each of them. And then there was the big tin box that had all sorts of yummy stuff crammed into it. The house always smelled of fried chicken. It is likely because she always brought chicken for the picnic.
Grandpa would likely have already backed the car out near the gate. He would keep asking if he could start putting things into the car, but no, not until it was all lined up on the cupboard. Then when grandma was sure she had remembered everything, we all were assigned to carry something to the car. She would take the thing that needed to go in the bottom of the trunk herself. We would bring our burden to her to stack just so. Then we would all get into the car, but wait, she had forgotten her sun bonnet. Her bonnet was very wide with a pretty band around the outside. The band went through the hat on both sides with long tails to tie under her chin. She would come a runnin through the gate and into the car. We were off!
When we got to the blueberry picking spot, Grandpa would take off without any of us. He did not even take a bucket to pick his berries. He was too impatient to wait until grandma fashioned a belt for each of us. the belt went around us with the bail of a lard pail inside the belt. She would always show us to keep it slightly to one side so it did not slosh the berries so badly when we walked. Shortly grandpa would return to advise us which direction to head to find the best berries. Grandma would rig him up with a larger lard pail and we set off to the berry patch.
I can still remember how good those first berries always tasted. I bet we each ate a cup of berries before the first one hit the lard pail. Can you picture little Stevie all smeared up with blue berry juice. It is too bad we did not get a picture of that.
After we had picked all we wanted, we would return to the car. Grandma would spread out this giant tablecloth under a shady tree. We would all sit in a circle and enjoy chicken, date roll ups, and fresh bread. Grandma would mix up a drink that I would always call Kool-Ade. Grandma would be very insulted and correct me and say it was not some cheap Kool-Ade. This was real nectar. The difference was lost on me, but I can still remember how much of a big deal it was for me to understand that grandma did not serve that lousy Kool-Ade.
It did not take much to fill us up with all the berries we had eaten. Grandpa would likely want to take a short nap in the shade before we headed home. Grandma would leave us with grandpa and go for another bucket of berries. Good times.
Kayak Bandit