"I sew with rav'lin's. Here is some rav'lin's I use. I pull that out
of tobacco sacks, flour sacks, anything, when I don't have the money
to buy a spool of thread. I sew right on just as good with the
rav'lin's as if it was thread. Tobacco sacks make the best rav'lin's.
I got two bags full of tobacco sacks that I ain't unraveled yet. There
is a man down town who saves them for me. When a man pulls out a sack
he says, 'Save that sack for me, I got an old colored lady that makes
thread out of tobacco sacks.' These is what he has give me. (She
showed the interviewer a sack which had fully a gallon of little
tobacco sacks in it--ed.)
"They didn't use rav'lin's in slave time. They spun the thread. Then
they balled it. Then they twisted it, and then they sew with it. They
didn't use rav'lin's then, but they used them right after the War.
"My mama used to say, 'Come here, Lugenia.' She and me would work
together. She wanted me to reel for her. Ain't you never seen these
reels? They turn like a spinning-wheel, but it is made indifferent.
You turn till the thing pops, then you tie it; then it's ready to go
to the loom. It is in hanks after it leaves the reel and it is pretty,
too.