Vintage flour sacks and penny pinching

[RobinBee]

Hi everybody, newbie here.
Just getting ready to take my first stab at makind my own CD. Trying to save money, and I was hoping someone could answer a couple questions. Here's the rundown:

My grandma passed, and left a bunch of yards of flour sack material she got from *her* MIL. (That's what--late 1800's mfg?)

Wow. They're old. But in good shape! I was just about to shell about a bunch of money on fabric on the off chance I have the skills to make my own CD, when my mom offered this to me for that cause.

So a couple of questions--
1--does anyone know if fabric of this age would have been bleached in some dangerous manner with hars chemicals? If so, do you think they are still hanging around on it? Can I get it off?
2--Can I even make cloth diapers out of this stuff? should I plan to buy some kind of different stuffing or batting to go inside?

Help! Anyone? thanks in advance. . . I can use any advice you can give. . .

[~Stephanie~]

flour sacks make great prefolds and flats!

I would just wash in hot before sewing until they feel soft.

[Dahlea]

If they're in good shape-I might check out selling the material as is first. Vintage materials can be worth quite a lot to collectors!

[Mamja]

What kind of fabric do you think they are?

[RobinBee]

Thanks everyone.:

@~Stephanie~: Great. . .I *was* hoping to make some kind of fitteds (I really had high hopes for my sewing abilities), but I'll take what I can get from it being a freebee.

@Dahlea: That's an interesting thought. I might be able to make enough dough to buy diapers, rather than making my own, possibly frankensteinish ones. I wonder if I'd have to prove its age. . .hmm, will google this a bit.

@allibut: Not sure, but most feed sacks were made of 100% cotton. It isn't stretchy. I don't know if there's another name for the weave, I only know it as "flour sack material".

[gabysmom617]

I have a friend from a different cloth diapering message board who uses flour sacks for diapers, and she loves them. She uses them as flats. She loves them so much that I went out a got a couple of packs to try them out too. (I'm cheap.)

I don't know about the vintage aspect of it, though.