BAGS OF SACKS

I wrote in a recent post about cow coats and sacks, see Money for old rope and wished I could find more of the lovely striped heavy hemp material in good condition. Lo and behold! I have just acquired a huge roll of over 30m. with the dashing dark blue and red stripes, enough to decorate a barn and seating on a grand scale and I am so pleased - It's extraordinay how things do turn up if you are ready to grab them there and then - I'm afraid I'm always telling my customers that if they see something old they really like, they should go for it there and then, it is very rare for such items to be found a second time - they all go back to pre-war days and so many of the huge reserves and stores have now been turned out to make way for new, cheaper, easier to maintain articles . If these sacks were used for potatoes and root vegetables long ago, they have certainly been replaced with plastic sacks and most burnt or gone to the rubbish dumps. This is the stuff that was used for upholstering terrace chairs of a Pacific Ocean house by my client for a famous musical composer who likes cats.