make bricks without straw

Idioms  

1. Perform a task without essential materials or means, as in Writing a report without the current data is making bricks without straw. This expression alludes to straw as a material necessary in early brick manufacturing. [Early 1600s]

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Example Sentences

In the latter, you are often expected to make bricks without straw, but in the former, to grow lemons without a tree.

From Time Magazine Archive

After all, to build his air force Marshal Milch had to make bricks without straw.

From Time Magazine Archive

Like the rest of us, newspaper men cannot be expected to make bricks without straw.

From Time Magazine Archive

But they were not Jews, any more than they were Christians: they were simply work-people—the slaves who make bricks without straw, and not for the use of a king of Egypt, but for modern Babylon.

From A Double Knot by Fenn, George Manville

You may even find yourself required to make bricks without straw.

From A Romance in Transit by Lynde, Francis