Featured Recreating and filling a flour sack

I want to create a flour sack to use on stage, for a production of Diary of Anne Frank. I can easily buy flour sacks themselves. However, I want to have it full (or apparently full) of flour. The classic animation of a flour sack seems to be a common exercise for someone learning to do animation. They always have these sort-of tabs on the 4 corners, that the animators always use as short arms and legs. See the picture below


I am not clear what those tabs are. Perhaps they are simply the wrinkled corners of a piece of fabric, that is sewn like a pillowcase cover, and is overstuffed. Or are they the result of how the bags are made and sewn shut?

All my internet searching has only shown images of empty flour bags, and crafts that people do with them. Their popularity has made it difficult to find the kind of information I am seeking.

I am picturing a 5-lb sized bag, which may be done differently than a much larger bag. Does anyone have a clue about what causes those tabs?

Thank you for any leads.
-Joe

 

Vintage flour/feed sacks don't have tabs like that. The animator is drawing them that way so he can create personality/poses/moods/movement/etc.

 

After some more searching, and adding the word "mill" to my search, that was able to give me some pictures from flour mills that had some filled bags. It seems that some did have these tab-like things on the top corners. I still can't figure them out. Perhaps on just the large sizes, they tied the corner into a knot, to provide a handle to help grab the bag? The 1st photo has a 48lb bag with them. But the picture that has the cat, shows what may be a 10lb bag, which probably didn't need such a handle. Perhaps they were just puckers in the fabric, from where the cord along the top was pulled tight?

Here are a few pictures.

 

Here is a description of hand sewing grain sacks during harvest. I believe the "ears" he talks about are the "tabs" you mean. They were probably useful as handles for heavy bags.

https://www.farmanddairy.com/columns/hand-sewing-grain-sacks-during-harvest/444837.html

 

Winner !!!
Strangest topic on the Antiquers site......ever !!

But....it is interesting !!

 

By WWII, there were probably few hand sewn bags for grain or other commodities. Machine sewn bags would just have a line of heavy stitching all along the top. But the corners of the bag could still be bunched together to help in lifting.

In this WWI photo from a British mill, the workers are grasping the corners, but you can see on the last bag on the right that there are no "ears":

https://www.thevintagenews.com/2019/02/22/flour-sack-dresses/

In this 1939 photo by Margaret Bourke-White you can see one knotted corner, but most of the bags seem to have just straight seams:

https://www.thevintagenews.com/2019/02/22/flour-sack-dresses/

 

The strangest topic was KSW's pendant from Tokyo. I won't go into details here.

 

Carriers with sacks for one of the mills in Schiedam, Holland. The photo is small, but it looks like the upper corners of the sacks are either knotted, or gathered to form handles:

http://singelkwartierschiedam.blogspot.com/p/zakkendrager.html

 

From someone who id old and was raised on a farm where we had most of our grain milled, the above information is correct. On top of that most of my clothes were made from the sacks!

 

Interesting how formulating a post here can lead to other search terms. I know nothing about farms or sacks, so I can't help you.

 

@Joe Dunfee , check this thread out : https://www.redpowermagazine.com/forums/topic/83928-anyone-know-how-to-sew-a-burlap-grain-sack-shut/

 

Here is a book, from 1923, that details the process of sewing a bag of grain. https://archive.org/details/sewinggrainsacks261koeb/page/n5/mode/2up?view=theater

So, they seemed to officially be called "ears". They were only on the top of the bag. Though, I think my earlier theory that they may have been puckers in the fabric, caused by stuffing a square bag, is what suggested to the cartoon animators that these "ears" also were on the bottom of the bag. Also, these ears seem to be inherent to larger bags than a 5 or 10 pound bag that we may buy today. Of course, rarely to people cook from scratch anymore.

The other method of closing a bag that I found, was created as the bag was emptied. This was often tied into a "miller's knot". It is a knot that seals the partially empty bag. Here is a video, that shows one way it would be done in a high-volume situation. There seem to be many variations on the knot. Below is a picture of a tied-off bag, and one with the top portion rolled down, so the bag is open to scoop flour out.

Thank you all for your insight. I know that few will see this on stage, and notice that it is authentic. But, I think it helps those of us working behind the scenes to feel that we are recreating history a bit. I love using real antiques on stage for the same feel. It just doesn't happen as much with modern reproduction. I also sometimes share information like this bag sewing with the cast. They will also likely hear from me about the flour bag dresses from the depression era. -Joe (Cited from: https://www.antiquers.com/threads/recreating-and-filling-a-flour-sack.59402/add-reply)

 

I still have an apron my grandmother made from a flour sack.