The Art of Upcycling Vintage Materials

The seed sacks, grain bags, and barn hardware used in every Selina Vaughan piece are not just raw materials. They are artefacts of a time when nothing was thrown away, when every scrap of fabric and every nail served a second purpose. Understanding that history is part of understanding what makes these pieces special.

Stacked vintage burlap and cotton sacks with printed logos on wooden shelf

A Brief History of Feed Sack Fabric

In the early 1900s, feed, flour, and seed were sold in plain cotton or burlap sacks. Thrifty homemakers quickly realised the cotton ones could be washed, bleached, and sewn into clothing, curtains, and quilts. By the 1930s, manufacturers caught on. Companies like Purina, Pillsbury, and Bemis began printing their sacks with colourful patterns and bold graphics, knowing the packaging itself was part of the purchase decision.

At the peak of the trend in the late 1940s, more than three and a half million American women were sewing with sack cloth. The National Cotton Council estimated that sack fabric accounted for over 50 million garments a year. Dresses, aprons, children's clothes, and household linens were all cut from feedstore purchases.

The practice faded in the 1960s as paper and plastic packaging took over. The remaining vintage sacks scattered into attics, barns, and estate sales, where they sat for decades. Today they are collectors' items, prized for their graphics and the quality of the cotton, which was woven tighter than most modern quilting fabric.

Why These Materials Matter

Using vintage materials is not a marketing angle. It is a practical choice with real consequences.

The cotton is exceptional. Feed sack cotton was woven to hold 50 to 100 pounds of grain without tearing. After 70 or 80 years, the weave is still tighter and more durable than most fabric you will find at a modern fabric store.
The colours have already stabilised. Any dye that was going to bleed or fade has already done so over the past several decades. What remains is a soft, settled palette that looks better than anything you can achieve with new dye on new cloth.
No two pieces are the same. Even sacks from the same manufacturer and the same era differ in wear pattern, staining, and fading. This means every bag cut from a different sack is genuinely unique, not mass-produced to look handmade.
It keeps useful material out of landfill. The environmental argument is straightforward. These materials already exist. Using them avoids the water, energy, and chemicals needed to produce new fabric.

From Sack to Bag: The Process

Each bag takes between six and ten hours of work, spread across several steps.

First, the sack is inspected for damage. Holes, thin spots, and heavy staining are marked. Selina then soaks the fabric in a diluted solution of oxygen-based cleaner for 24 hours, followed by a cold rinse and flat drying. No bleach, no machine wash, no heat. The goal is to remove surface dirt without stressing the fibres.

Next, the fabric is ironed, and pattern pieces are cut to work around any flaws. The best section of the print is centred on the front panel. Straps and gussets are cut from vegetable-tanned leather, punched, and edge-burnished by hand.

Assembly happens on a Juki LU-1508N walking-foot machine using heavy-duty polyester thread. Hardware is attached with copper rivets set with a hand press. The finished bag is conditioned with a light coat of beeswax and packed in tissue paper.

Rustic canvas and burlap fabric laid flat showing weave texture and grain

The Jewelry: Hardware with a Past

The jewelry line started as a way to use the small metal pieces that turned up alongside the seed sacks in barn cleanouts: brass grommets, copper rivets, steel washers, and hinge plates. Each piece is cleaned, filed smooth, and reshaped by hand using basic metalworking tools: a ball-peen hammer, an anvil, a bench vise, and a set of needle files.

The result is jewellery that looks and feels like it has been worn for years, because in a sense the raw material has. The patina on a 1950s brass grommet is the product of decades of oxidation. No chemical treatment can replicate it.

Sourcing and Scarcity

Vintage seed sacks are a finite resource. There will never be more of them. The supply shrinks a little every year as sacks are damaged, lost, or purchased by collectors who frame them rather than cut them. Selina estimates she has about three years of workable inventory in her studio and is always actively sourcing more from estate sales, agricultural auctions, and a network of pickers across Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas.