Saturday, March 3, 2012

Remember When Sears Sold Fabric?


Do you remember? I do. We did sometimes order fabric from the Sears or Montgomery Ward catalogs - although it was definitely preferable to go to our downtown fabric store in Placerville "The Quality Shop" and actually see and touch it in person. The advertisement above was found in a magazine from 1972, and the remainder of the pictures in this post are from a 1972 Sears catalog.







I just think they are fun to look at!

10 comments:

Tina Dawn said...

I love this post! I want at least 3yards of all of it. I want a big fat Sears catalog like we used to get. Rembember how we would sit for seemed like hours and each take a page and we would pick one thing off each page that we could "have"? Love T

Heidi Ann said...

Tina - I DO remember, and it's funny you should say what you did, because as I was scanning these pages, I was thinking: "Boy, do I ever miss the "old days", when our catalogs would arrive", and sometimes we even got to order things. I still recall when I was in about sixth grade, and I got to order three inexpensive school dresses. To this day, I wish I had that very catalogs I could see "my" dresses in there that I was so excited about back then. Fond memories, indeed.

Lorlore said...

Oh, how I loved to sew. Back in the late 60's, early 70's, my favorite pastime. Learning to sew in our 4-H club was the best thing for me! We would walk downtown after school and look at all the pattern books in The Quality Shop and dream! I worked at The Montgomery Wards catalog store and I think my paychecks all went for fabric from the catalog. I will start again soon and sew for my Granddaughter.

Tina Dawn said...

Did one or both of you have a 4H class with Jeannie Helm as your leader? She lived out Oak Hill Road. We were talking at a Shakespeare meeting and she remembers that. I think it was for sewing, because I remembered it wasn't me in her class, I had two different Mrs. Halls. One lived by Huots on Pleasant Valley and the other by Mosbachers on Woodland Drive.

Heidi Ann said...

Hi T - It wasn't me, either. I believe the 4-H Leader who "taught" me sewing (she tried, anyway - - I was not a very good student) was Mrs. Cottier - also on Oak Hill Rd. Her daughter Lynn was one of Janet P.'s best friends; they lived practically across the road from one another. I was happy to see her again at Pete's service.

Claudia said...

My mom bought all her fabric at Sears! I remember going with her and picking out yards of fabric for a dress she was making for me or my sisters.

xo
Claudia

farmlady said...

Look at all the colors and prints.
I lived in the Bay Area and we had a lot of fabric stores, so I didn't remember that Sears sold fabric.
I do remember going to Britex in San Francisco for the first time and dying from fabric overload. It would have been better for me to have less to choose from in the 60's and 70's. It was a colorful, exciting time for fabric and we wanted it all.
Love the old advertisements.

Anonymous said...

I remember Sears had a TV ad campaign in the early 70s where an elegantly dressed Indian lady said "I buy all the fabrics for my saris at Sears." It was still rare to see non-Caucasian people in advertising, especially on TV, so it was noteworthy.

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yosemite faith said...

i love this. i used to go through the catalog a lot but especially when up at grams. besides learning colors from my crayolas i learned a lot of colors by looking at the fabrics in the sears catalog.