Vintage Fabric Inspiration

Above photo shows some of my old stock - sadly no longer available, all sold!

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You can also pick up vintage fabrics from Antiques and Vintage Fairs, Auctions and even jumble sales if you're prepared to rummage 🕵️‍♀️

Photo credit: The Textile Society

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Vintage fabrics can be hard to find in large amounts. If you want 12 metres of fabric for curtains, it's often simpler to look for something similar in a current design. There are numerous vintage-style designs available from UK fabric houses.

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Founded in 1982, Jean Monro specialises in reproducing classic English chintzes, using original 19th-century hand-blocked printing techniques. Her largely floral designs have become synonymous with English Country House Style.

Remnant available on this website

Remnant available on this website

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 Sanderson is probably the brand whose name is synonymous with floral and botanical prints, many of which are vintage in their style.

Remnant available on this website

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GP & J Baker have an archive which includes 18th Century Chinoiserie reproductions, Chinese wallpapers, Italian and Turkish velvets, Indian prints, French toiles, English chintz prints and Art Nouveau paintings. Some of their designs  have been in production for nearly 100 years. Their designers tailor the archive designs in colour and style to fit todays market.

Using vintage fabrics / vintage-style fabrics, doesn't mean that you have to be a slave to the period. Vintage designs can be given a 21st Century twist!

You don't have to use traditional trimmings

This dark blue toile cushion looks at home in this traditional style interior, and yet the bright red and blue braid and pom poms are a contemporary addition.

Toile de jouy designs are frequently used in bedrooms, as curtains, soft furnishings and bedding. However, it does depend on the content of the design. You might not want a hunting scene toile on your bedspread!

Available on this website

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Vintage and vintage-style fabrics have a nostalgic, bucolic charm, most typified in floral designs. The cushions in this photo make me think of cottages, plump quilts, snugly blankets and roses growing round the windows.

I think Pink and Green are a typically vintage combination if you're looking for a colour scheme, it's especially suited to bedrooms.

Available on this website

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Brighter, primary colours like Red, Yellow and Blue, work better in day rooms, like kitchens and dining rooms. Again, these vintage fabric cushions have been given a modern twist with the addition of pom pom trimming.

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One of the attractions of buying vintage fabric is that you can find yourself something rare that not many other people are likely to have. Fabrics that are pre 1980s, were made in small numbers or by lesser known designers, are desirable amongst vintage textile lovers.

(previously sold on @englishcountryfabric)

Designed in the 1980s by Bernard Nevill, a man well known and much admired amongst his contemporaries. 

He was a lecturer at St. Martins School of Art, where he taught Ossie Clark and Zandra Rhodes. He worked at Liberty, where he became Design Director, from 1961 to 1972.

He designed for Pierre Frey and Boussac, as well as fashion houses in Italy and Germany.

An avid collector of antiques, his home was used as the set for Uncle Monty’s London home in the film Withnail and I. 

 Pierre Frey is an established, luxury brand and its fabrics, current or vintage are highly desirable worldwide.

Get Sewing and Be Creative!