1880s Antique Fabric Workers Toile Fabric

I love learning and sharing history through unusual fabrics and so this flowery idyllic fabric factory worker toile has been a favorite for a while. I really need to find a piece for my own collection.

From American Toile: Four Centuries of Sensational Scenic Fabrics and Wallpaper, page 154, by Michele Palmer, it is called "Capital and Labor in Accord" by Cocheco Manuf., Cotton, 16" repeat. 1886 original roller print. "This toile was produced as propaganda during a period of strikes and labor unrest, factors that contributed to the Colonial Revival. It sought to soothe the American worker with images of a happy working life. The legends below each vignette read 'Labor is Honorable,' 'Honor to the Iron Worker', 'After Work the Happy Home and 'The Two Powers in Accord.'"

A sample card advertising the fabric

Here's a whole quilt made using the Labor Toile. Part of the New England Quilt Museum Collection --donated by my friend SW. 

 And there is the tile quilt we looked at a few days ago. And I still need to share the 3rd quilt with the crazy teeny pieces ... stay tuned.

Antique Toile de Jouy -Cheeky little Cupid

In honor of St. Valentine's Day, I went on a search for cupids in my antique quilt collection.  Here is the best cupid fabric ever ... The Cupid-Seller or Love Merchant, a toile de Jouy, from Jouy France, Oberkampf fabric company, from 1817.  Look at the amazing detail. For more cheeky little cupids... tune in tomorrow

Antique Bird Toile Quilt - Modern Makeover

My early antique strippy Flying Geese quilt with alternating stripes of mallard drake and hen fabric that was printed in the 1790s by Talwin & Foster in Banister Hall in England.

And here's more of the antique quilt.

I was invited to participate in Sue Wildemuth's Eagle Quilts By the Decades Quilt project and I picked the 1830s and used the antique quilt above as my inspiration. I substituted an eagle pillar print for the ducks and made pairs of flying geese. Birds all around!!

Birds of a Feather Fly Together
24" x 24"  2011
Sandra Starley

The antique inspiration and the modern makeover getting acquainted before the eagle flew away to Sue's collection.

It was an honor to be commissioned to create this quilt and to be featured in the book and even on the cover. The book is available on amazon.

Here's a detail of the quilt and the eagle pillar print.

antique bird toile 200 years old or more

This toile was printed from about 1780 to 1820. See Art of the Needle, Quilts from the Shelburne Museum, page 30-31 for their 'Pheasant and Mandarin Duck Motif' whole cloth quilt dated 1810 made from the same toile. You can really see the toile as the whole quilt is shown and a full page detail photo. It is also shown in Montgomery's English Fabrics and Eaton's update. But, if anyone has more information on this fabric, please let me know or if they have any in a quilt.

Here it is in my very antique quilt. Strippy Flying Geese/Bird Toile Quilt 72 w X 85 h. English blue/white cotton copperplate printed toile with 36 inch high repeat. To show scale, the first picture showing the pair of ducks is an 8.5 X 11 scan.
It was hard to see any detail from auction photo so it was quite wonderful to visit with my new feathered friends when they flew in. I have to wonder if the quiltmaker had a sense of humor pairing flying geese strips with the bird toile? The toile is in good/very good condition but the flying geese are suffering from the usual early brown mordant damage. Backing is cotton, dark blue/white small scale woven check.

Detail of my Flying Geese Quilt featuring a drake and hen between the geese... duck duck goose 
Ha Ha- quilty humor is not a new thing.