When pickles, fruit and jellies can be found any time of year at 24-hour supermarkets and young girls are more likely to be found in a youth softball leagues or school bands than at sewing tables, the ladies who came to the Warren County Extension Office this week to show off quilts, crafts and foods want to preserve skills they see are disappearing in modern society.

Only 12 came this year to the Warren County chapter’s Mississippi Homemaker Volunteer exhibition to showcase artistry and culinary skills that were once a part of everyday life.

Due in part to bad weather, as the remnants of Hurricane Humberto nudged toward Vicksburg, it was the lowest turnout ever for the event, which used to draw hundreds and nowadays brings around 30 or 40.

Organizer Lurline Strickland has seen a steady decline in the 40 years she has been part of the Mississippi Homemaker Volunteers.

“We’re an older group,” said Strickland, but quickly added “we think young.”

Almost everyone there Thursday was older than 60.

“We’re disappearing,” said Shirley Skinner, whose pickles and muscadine jelly won a blue ribbon. “Most women have jobs now.”

Few girls are taught how to pickle, preserve, quilt or embroider anymore, and the ladies of MHV say that’s a shame.

“A lot of the old crafts are being forgotten,” said Skinner, who, as a girl growing up in the Ozarks, watched her mother and grandmother can foods.

“That’s what we had for the winter,” she said. “If you didn’t can foods, you didn’t eat them.”

Now 70, Skinner can buy pickles or fresh cucumbers any time at Kroger or Wal-Mart.

“I can,” she said. “But, you know, it’s not nearly as good. We’ve got to have my pickles to put in the potato salad for Christmas and Thanksgiving and Easter.”

Until about 20 years ago, the competition took place in conjunction with the Mississippi State Fair.

Since then, it has gotten smaller and has changed venues from City Auditorium to a meeting room in the county extension office.

Downsizing has its advantages though. Every contest entry had a ribbon next to it. A few will move forward to compete at the state fair.

Phyllis Tingle spent about a year, she said, making a queen-size, diamond-patterned quilt using hundreds of patches no larger than postage stamps. The quilt won a blue ribbon Thursday.

Like Skinner, Tingle learned from the women in her family in Hollandale.

“I used to watch my grandmother at the machine,” she said.

Pearl Ballard, 77, who was recognized for a denim purse she sewed, recalled a time in America when homemaker skills were taught in school.

“When I was going to school, we had home economics classes,” Ballard said. “You took home economics ninth through 12th grade.”

For Ballard, practicing these crafts is therapeutic and recreational — not to mention thrifty. Ballard, who last year modeled her own entry — a two-piece suit — sewed clothes for her children until they were out of college.

“I love it,” she said. “It’s entertaining, it keeps you focused. It gives you a good feeling of doing things for others because I give them to the nursing homes and things like that.”

The Mississippi Homemakers Volunteers donate their time and crafts to hospitals and charities, particularly during the holidays.

As its members grow older, the group’s numbers are fading, said Skinner. “We used to have it over at the City Auditorium and it would be packed with exhibits. We would have quilts all along the railing.”

She has tried to interest younger family members, but to no avail.

“They’ve got their video games,” she said. “They’re not interested.”