Sometimes we put on the soles ourselves by taking wornout shoes, whose soles were thought sufficiently strong to carry another pair of uppers, ripping the soles off, placing them in warm water to make them more pliable and to make it easier to pick out all the old stitches, and then in the same perforations stitching our knit slippers or cloth-made shoes. We also had to cut out soles for shoes from our home-tanned leather, with the sole of an old shoe as our pattern, and with an awl perforate the sole for sewing on the upper. I was often surprised at the dexterity with which we could join soles and uppers together, the shoe being reversed during the stitching, and when finished turned right side out again; and I smile even now when I remember how we used to hold our self-made shoes at arm’s length and say, as they were inspected: “What is the blockade to us, so far as shoes are concerned, when we can not only knit the uppers, but cut the soles and stitch them on? Each woman and girl her own shoemaker; away with bought shoes; we want none of them!” But alas, we really knew not how fickle a few months would prove that we were.
Our sewing-thread was of our own make. Spools of “Coats’” thread, which was universally used in the South before the war, had long been forgotten. For very fine sewing-thread great care had to be used in drawing the strand of cotton evenly, as well as finely. It was a wearisome task, and great patience had to be exercised, as there was continual snapping of the fine hand-spun thread. From broaches of such spun sewing-thread balls of the cotton were wound from two to three strands double, according as coarse or fine thread was needed. The ball was then placed in a bowl of warm soapsuds and the thread twisted on to a bobbin of corn husks placed on the spindle of the wheel. During the process of twisting the thread a miniature fountain would be set playing from the thread as it twirled upon the spindle. Bunch thread from the cotton mill, number twelve, made very strong sewing-thread, but little could we afford of that; it was exceedingly scarce. When the web of cloth, especially that of factory bunch thread, had been woven as closely up as the sley and harness would permit the warp opening for the shuttle to pass through, the ends of the weaver’s threads, or thrums, generally a yard long when taken from around the large cloth beam, would be cut from the cloth and made into sewing-thread. We spent many evenings around the fire, if winter time, or lamp if summer weather, drawing the threads singly from the bunch of thrums and then tying together two or three strands, as the thread was to be coarse or fine. It was also wound into balls and twisted in the same manner as other sewing-thread. The ball would be full of knots, but a good needleful of thread, perhaps more, could always be had between the knots.
There were rude frames in most people’s yards for making rope out of cotton thread spun very coarse, and quite a quantity of such rope was made on these roperys. A comical incident occurred at one of the rope-makings which I attended. One afternoon, I had gone out in the yard with several members of the household, to observe the method of twisting the long coil of rope by a windlass attached to one end of the frame, after it had been run off the broaches on to the frame. Two of the smaller girls were amusing themselves running back and forth under the rope while it was being slowly twisted, now and again giving it a tap with their hands as they ducked under it, when, just as it was drawn to its tightest tension, it parted from the end of the frame opposite the windlass, and in its curved rebound caught one of the little girls by the hair of her head. There was “music in the air” for some little time, for it was quite a task to free her hair from the hard twisted coils of rope.
Our hats and bonnets were of our own manufacture, for those we had at the beginning of the war had been covered anew, made over, turned, and changed till none of the original remained. As we had no “flowers of sulphur” to bleach our white straw bonnets and hats, we colored those we had with walnut hulls, and made them light or dark brown, as we wished. Then we ripped up our tarlatan party-dresses of red, white, blue, or buff, some all gold and silver bespangled, to trim hats with. Neighbor would divide with neighbor the tarlatan for trimming purposes, and some would go quite a distance for only enough to trim a hat. For the plumes of our hats or bonnets the feathers of the old drake answered admirably, and were often plucked, as many will remember, for that very purpose. Quaker or Shaker bonnets were also woven by the women of Alabama out of the bulrushes that grew very tall in marshy places. These rushes were placed in the opening of the threads of warp by hand, and were woven the same as if the shuttle had passed them through. Those the width of the warp were always used. The bonnets were cut in shape and lined with tarlatan.
The skirt of the Shaker was made of single sleyed cloth, as we called it. In common woven heavy cloth two threads of warp were passed through the reeds of the sley. For the skirts of our bonnets we wanted the cloth soft and light, hence only one thread was passed through the reeds, and that was lightly tapped by the batten; it was then soft and yielding. When the cloth was dyed with willow bark, which colored a beautiful drab, we thought our bonnets equal to those we had bought in days gone by. There was variety enough of material to make hats for both men and women, palmetto taking the lead for hats for Sunday wear. The straw of oats or wheat and corn husks were braided and made into hats. Hats which were almost everlasting, we used to think, were made of pine straw. Hats were made of cloth also. I remember one in particular of gray jeans, stitched in small diamonds with black silk thread. It was as perfect a hat as was ever moulded by the hatter, but the oddness of that hat consisted in its being stitched on the sewing-machine with silk thread. All sewing-machines in our settlement were at a standstill during the period of the war, as our home-made thread was not suited to machines, and all sewing had to be done by hand.
We became quite skilled in making designs of palmetto and straw braiding and plaiting for hats. Fans, baskets, and mats we made of the braided palmetto and straw also. Then there was the “bonnet squash,” known also as the “Spanish dish-rag,” that was cultivated by some for making bonnets and hats for women and children. Such hats presented a fine appearance, but they were rather heavy. Many would make the frame for their bonnets or hats, then cover it with the small white feathers and down of the goose, color bright red with the juice of poke berries, or blue with indigo mud, some of the larger feathers, and on a small wire form a wreath or plume with bright-colored and white feathers blended together; or, if no wire was convenient, a fold or two of heavy cloth, or paper doubled, was used to sew the combination of feathers on for wreath, plume, or rosette. Tastefully arranged, this made a hat or bonnet by no means rustic looking.
V.
Willow wickerwork came in as a new industry with us. We learned to weave willow twigs into baskets of many shapes and sizes.