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Carolyn Mulford

Carolyn Mulford

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Monthly Archives: July 2014

My School Wardrobe

Carolyn Mulford Posted on July 30, 2014 by CarolynJuly 30, 2014

With school opening in about three weeks, the newspapers are full of ads of school clothing. In the mid-20th century, school kids had far fewer clothes, but we country kids started planning our wardrobes in the spring.  We had to. That’s when we began collecting the colorful cotton feedsacks that we would turn into blouses, skirts, dresses, and shirts.

A feedsack apron

A feedsack apron

The process began with the arrival of cartoon-cute baby chickens. The chicks lived in a sweltering brooder house, and you had to check the heat, water, and feed frequently.

When you bought the feed, you picked out the prettiest sacks and continued to collect them as the chicks grew into fryers and layers. A dress with a full skirt could take most of three sacks. Often feed buyers liked the same prints, so getting the ones you wanted could be difficult.

Every summer from nine to fourteen, I endured a 4-H sewing project using the feedsacks and, later, the new synthetic fabrics. Once we had the material for the clothes, we chose  patterns. These came on a flimsy paper easy to tear as you pinned the coded pieces to the cloth to cut out. Battle strategy is no more complicated than figuring out how to place the patterns on cloth so pieces will match and you waste no cloth.

Once you’d cut the pieces out, you pinned them together and then fit them. That usually required me to stand on a kitchen chair in my underwear and rotate as my mother moved the pins to get a proper fit. She always allowed a bit for growth. I basted some seams to rid of the pins before going to the sewing machine.

In some ways sewing resembles writing. You redo it until you get it right. But sewing machines take hand-and-foot coordination and have no delete button. The seams had to be perfect. That meant I ripped out almost every one at least once. The most frustrating parts were sleeves and zippers.

The final step was ironing out the many wrinkles. Ironing on a hot, humid day gives you a preview of hell. Today I buy nothing that requires ironing.

–Carolyn Mulford

Posted in News

Latest Postings


Why we needed Title IX before 1972

Carolyn Mulford Posted on July 5, 2022 by CarolynJuly 5, 2022

The fiftieth anniversary of Title IX, a landmark law requiring gender equality in schools receiving federal funds, reminded me of how little opportunity to play sports most females of my generation had. (Title IX changed much more than sports, but that’s another story.) In my one-room school with roughly a dozen students in grades one through eight, we had no organized physical education program for girls or boys. We played together at recess and noon, mostly baseball or games involving some form of tag. Our entire sporting equipment consisted of two bats, a softball, a baseball, and a volleyball (used for … Continue reading →

Posted in The Feedsack Dress, Uncategorized

Concert Jogs Memories of Vienna

Carolyn Mulford Posted on January 2, 2022 by CarolynFebruary 7, 2022

Memories interrupted my enjoyment of the Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s concert broadcast last night on PBS. Unlike my Show Me protagonist, a CIA covert operative embedded in Vienna, I lived there only three years, but we shared a love of the city’s music. I went to the opera, an orchestra concert, chamber music, an operetta, or some other musical performance once or twice a week. Tickets were cheap, particularly if you were willing to sit in the balcony directly above a chamber orchestra using the instruments in vogue when the music was composed centuries ago. You could usually get a … Continue reading →

Posted in News, Uncategorized

New Sinister Snowman Edition

Carolyn Mulford Posted on March 8, 2021 by CarolynFebruary 7, 2022

Covid-19 stopped printers cold last spring. Consequently, the mass market paperback edition of Show Me the Sinister Snowman missed its slot in the printing queue. With the snow gone (until next winter, I hope), Harlequin Worldwide Mystery has just released the fifth book in the Show Me series.     This one finds Phoenix and friends trapped in an isolated mansion by a blizzard. Their housemates are aspiring political candidates and potential donors, one of whom intends to lessen their number before the roads clear. Phoenix has come to the meeting with two goals: to support Annalynn’s electoral dreams and … Continue reading →

Posted in News, News releases, Show Me Series

Memories Sparked The Feedsack Dress

Carolyn Mulford Posted on March 1, 2021 by CarolynMarch 1, 2021

When I began writing The Feedsack Dress almost 50 years ago, I asked my mother and two sisters to talk about their memories of 1949. I’d chosen that year for the novel because my recollections and my research identified it as a time of transition for the country, our rural Missouri community, and our family. Our discussion evoked many forgotten details and produced a major plot point. We gathered around the kitchen table at my parents’ farm on a hot summer day. To my surprise, each of us remembered not only different movies and music but also different versions of events, … Continue reading →

Posted in Historicals, News, The Feedsack Dress

Earthquakes on My Mind

Carolyn Mulford Posted on December 16, 2020 by CarolynDecember 16, 2020

2020 has been a horrible year. I hope it doesn’t end like another bad year, 1811. That year, rains brought mud and flood to Upper Louisiana. The nightly appearance of the devil-tailed Great Comet prompted rumors of destruction. The brilliant Tecumseh campaigned for tribes on both sides of the Mississippi to unite to beat back the encroaching Americans. The adolescent United States crept closer to the War of 1812. Then a natural disaster struck the middle of the newly expanded United States. In early morning on December 16, a series of earthquakes, aftershocks, and tremors began, interrupting New Madrid’s French … Continue reading →

Posted in Thunder Beneath My Feet

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