Vintage Corduroy Fabric

This week's post is about vintage corduroy fabrics.  Although corduroy is generally thought of as a winter clothing fabric, its a fabulous year-round textile for quilts, bags, and other accessories.
I find it very easy to sew and love to pair it with similar weight fabrics such as barkcloth, wool tweeds, and printed and cut velvets.

I remember corduroy being very popular in the 1970's, and had a well-loved pair of orange corduroy gauchos when I was a kid.  :)  This cute Penn-Dutch print was likely produced around that same time.

This next one is my favorite ( love the color combo of teal, navy, and olive) and is probably a little earlier, 1960's, I imagine.

It is a great match with the solid teal, as are several other fabrics.  The bright Fairy tale barkcloth is just begging to be paired up with it!

I also have a couple vintage linen towels that pair well with the solids.

Not sure yet what project these combos will be used for.  But what about you? Have you worked with this sturdy, versitile fabric?   Any other fans of corduroy out there? 
There's a lot of nasty weather across the country this week, stay safe everyone!

Back From the Beach

We took off and headed to sunny Florida for a couple of weeks.  We spent part of the time at my In-laws' near Lake Okeechobee, then ventured over to the gulf coast. 

We settled in on Marco Island and enjoyed perfect weather. The beaches are lovely and great for shell hunting (no live shelling, btw).

The sunsets were gorgeous...our i-phone photos don't do them justice.

 

We did go to a fairly large antique show in West Palm before we left, but not an inch of vintage quilt or upholstery fabric was found!  Lots of pretty embroidered linens, but no fabric yardage. :(

I didn't come home completely empty-handed, though. I did find a cute little apron and a funky vintage kitchen towel.  They are taking a bath right now, so I'll have to add their picture to the next post.

(sigh)  Its a very frosty morning in Ohio...back to reality.  lol



A Stack of Pretty Plisse

I love vintage plisse!  Plisse is a lightweight fabric with puckered texture. Although its similar to seersucker, the process for creating the puckers is completely different.  For seersucker, the texture is created by a slack-tension weaving process where alternating stripes of tight and bunched warp threads create a permanent crinkle texture.
 Plisse's bumpy texture is made by applying a chemical (sodium hydroxide) to parts of the fabric causing those areas to shrink and the untouched portions to pucker.  Its usually not necessary to iron plisse, (which is one of its many attributes) but should you feel the need, take care not to press hard or stretch the fabric, since you could flatten out the crinkles.  I've found that lightly steaming does the trick.

Often times the chemical is applied in a striped pattern to mimic seersucker, but others are done in a stippled pattern.

And the prints on the vintage stuff are utterly charming! Look at those sweet little birds. :)

My vintage catalogs often show these fabrics for use in summer dresses, children's wear, and baby accessories. So, I guess I probably should have written this post back at the beginning of summer. lol
Oh well, the recent purchase of a lovely 4 yard piece and the fact that its frosty outside and I'm already missing warm weather made me want to gather them for a photo shoot. :)

 

I suppose I should pull out some of my winter fabrics for the next post...corduroy and barkcloth, maybe?

Have a great weekend everyone!

Vintage 1940's Juvenile Print Fabrics

These are the cute vintage children's print fabrics that I recently found.  They are just small pieces (less than 1/2 yard) but all have their original 35/36" selvages in tact.  :)

The two larger pieces are the pink and yellow. The pink has cute pink bears and bunnies playing jump rope with a string of flowers. And the yellow is filled with happy ducks. This one has the remnants of writing on the selvage.

"...CLOTH" and at the other end of the selvage is the first letter "E..." . I've seen this dotted selvage stamp before and believe its the remnants of "EW QUADRIGA CLOTH".  The smaller blue piece also has part of this on the selvage.

This one features tiny bunnies and little toadstools or mushrooms.  And last is the kitties on pale yellow.

These are on the website here.  And you can see all of the recently added items here.
Have a great week everyone!

Vintage 1930-40's Butterflies and Quilt Squares

I'm in LOVE!  I recently found these gorgeous vintage butterfly applique pieces in the most wonderful 1930's and 40's prints.  There is 128  of them...2 of each print!

How about a closer look at these amazing prints...there are lots of blues.

Pretty greens and teals.

A nice collection of reds (love the cute fish print)

Yellows.

Rusts and orange.

And just a few pinks and purple.

I've had a couple of these prints in full width yardage before, but many I've never seen.   I think I'll have to keep one set for myself to use in projects and just to fawn over. :)  The rest will be listed on the website , after a bit more research is done to confirm they're vintage.   Not sure yet if I should break them up into smaller lots or keep them as one.  (opinions welcome).
I also purchased a lot of 4" quilt squares from the same seller.  There were many feedsacks in this lot.

And lots of cute fabric prints along with checks, stripes, paisleys, and a few solids.

Here's a few of my favorite prints.

Those little topiary trees are just too cute, and the patchwork print in the center...love that one.
So as you can see, I've been in vintage fabric print heaven.  But its not over yet! I also came across a 4 yard length of 1960-70's Kettlecloth.  Its the same mod daisy and lily of the valley design that I had before, but in a black and tan colorway.

Ok, that's it for now. I've bored you with enough fabrics for one day. lol  I do have a few more finds to share (including 4 amazing 30's juvenile print fabrics) but that will have to wait till later in the week.
Wishing a safe week to those in the path of Hurricane Sandy.  Its chilly, rainy and windy here in Ohio...a perfect day to stay in, make a big pot of soup, and sew.  :)

Anemone and Hunny

I wanted to snap a few pictures of our anemone flowers since they are one of the last things in the yard to bloom before winter.  Apparently, Hunny was feeling a bit jealous of the attention and decided she should be part of the photo shoot, as well.  :)

The anemone are tall and airy and make a nice backdrop for other plantings. We have both white and a pinkish purple color in several spots in the yard.

  

 

We're having a string of lovely fall days here in Ohio.  Have a great week everyone!

Print and Pattern

My love for prints and patterns goes beyond fabrics.  These little bowls, for example, caught my eye last week at Anthropologie and just had to come home with me.

They are so pretty with fun colors and prints on the inside and out.  And at just $8.00 a piece, they were an affordable splurge.  :)
Then earlier this week I spotted these cute little journals at TJMaxx.

Great colors and flower patterns!  And get this...just $1.99 for the pack of 4!  How could I not get them? lol  They are a nice size to fit in my purse and will come in handy for jotting down notes or to do lists. And they look pretty sitting on my night stand.

Just a couple of little things that made me smile this week. :)
Its a crisp and sunny fall day here in Ohio, hope everyone is enjoying autumn!

Fabric Gift Wrapping and Craft Paper Flowers

This weekend Hubby and I went to a fun wedding shower/reception picnic.  It was held at a local park and the weather was just gorgeous!  Normally, when it comes to gifts, I'm a big fan of gift bags...they're fast, easy, pretty, and you can fit most anything in one.  But on this occassion, our gift was not going to fit in a bag. I was going to have to go old-school and wrap this thing.  No wrapping paper in the house, but I did have some craft paper and lots of fabric. So I went with an Obi sash look using a pretty yellow and pink cherry blossom fabric and a small strip of white cotton.

Next I needed a flower of some sort.  I've seen some lovely paper flowers so I googled for a How-To. I found this tutorial and after unearthing my glue gun, i went to cutting.   I added a few extra layers of petals to mine, but the instructions were super easy.  I made one out of polka dot napkins that I picked up at a yard sale and the other out of the craft paper that I wrapped the box with.

Although I love the polka dots, it was a bit more fragile than the heavy craft paper, so I opted for just the solid one for this gift.  I could totally get addicted to making these little flowers! They are so fun and think of all the possibilities...you could use pretty vintage wrapping paper, newsprint, the sunday comics, sheet music, old book pages, old sewing pattern paper, etc...

In other news, the For Sale By Owner sign finally went up at the Tiny house.  We had the first showing over the weekend and received an offer! Hubby is dealing with the price negotiations and hopefully we'll be able to come to some agreement. Personally, I'm ready to say YES  just to have it done and over with quick, but we'll see.