Recycling in the olden days!

                             "Use it Up, wear it out, and make it do, or do without."
​                                                        " Waste not, want not."

             You saved every scrap of anything  to make into other things that were needed.
Clothing was made out of feed, flour or sugar sacks.    The sacks were  made out of colorful cloth that had different patterns from flowers, strips, to plain colors sewed together with very strong string. When the sacks were emptied of food, they were taken apart and washed for the cloth to make shirts, dresses. and other items for the home. You save the string, wrapping it into a ball for safe keeping till it was needed for sewing or other things. 
            Clothing was patched till it could no longer be patched, then the material that was good was cut out and made into quilts. When a quilt wore out on the outside, it was used as batting with a new top made and fastened over the old quilt by tying.  These quilts were called "Peek-a-boo" quilts,  meaning if you looked inside you would see the old worn out quilt.
        Our forefathers were very creative smart people that recycled everything they had into other useful items and created and made their own tools.  "They had a can do spirit!"  My mother would say,"Life is what you make it." When things did not go as planned, my dad would say, "well we will just have to find another way."