I think you'd have to be of a certain age to recognize these calicos.
My daughter is still clearing out Friend Marilyn's house and she brought these home. She was going to just throw them away but decided to ask if I wanted them. Hmmm.
Obviously they were a guild thing from the 1970's, each block is signed, and Marilyn embroidered over their signatures. I'm going to take these to her next time I go visit to see if she even remembers them.
And WHAT am I to do with them? I took them for the sake of the work that's gone into them, for the sake of the historical calico.....how old do you have to be to be considered historical? I know these came from the very early 1970s. I distinctly remember when quilting began again as a nostalgic bicentennial activity and groups and guilds began to form. I also remember if you used the word calico the reply was "well, this is what's out there".
And I guess because I remember these fabrics it dates me, too. I didn't quilt back then. Back then I was starting to crewel, count cross-stitch and give the side eye to needlepoint. I took a quilt class to prove to myself I wouldn't like it. Oops. But when I took that quilt class it was in a bona fide quilt fabric store with real choices far more generous in the offerings than these well over 55 year old calicos. In fact, for that learning class I chose from the Aunt Grace 30's line. There were lines.
Of course there were fabric stores, fabric departments in department stores (remember them?) and choices in cottons. My mom was a really accomplished seamstress so I was surrounded by fabric, but a store dedicated to quilt fabrics? I believe (and you will correct me if I'm wrong) that didn't really become a thing till the art of quilting re-emerged as a nostalgic "lost" art for the bicentennial of the U.S. This was a time when quilt revival went from making quilts from necessity to a hobby.
They definitely have the ok of those times. They were. Thing over here too. Then, I remember going to Sydney with my Mum in about 1983 and going to the largest fabric store and they had a small section of “American Patchwork Fabrics”. That seemed very exotic. LOL
ReplyDeleteWe bought a few small pieces and I made a cushion then and have used up the rest in various projects over the years.
I do not remember these fabrics, I do like the blocks though!
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ReplyDeleteYes, those fabrics are soooo 1970s Bicentennial! I have no idea what I'd do with them now. I take that back - I'd send them to Melissa at Pinker & Pumpkin blog. She loves to use those colors.
ReplyDeleteWell, I'm of that age too. I kept my mom's leftover calicos when she died. She made clothespin dolls and used that fabric for their dresses. I finally gave it all away because I knew I would never use it. I taught at one of those early quilt shops in the early 80's. Not because I knew so much, I just knew more than the people I was teaching. I taught how to make hand-pieced blocks using cardboard templates that you traced around with a pencil and cut them out one at a time . . . a long time ago. Fun times!
ReplyDeleteI remember these too! I have a tree skirt my mom made with some very much like them. She made newer, fancier ones (when crazy quilting took off, she made a mauve and medium blue one that dates itself terribly!), but when I moved out on my own, she still had the old one and I remember it fondly, so when she offered it to me, I snagged it right up and still use it every year! I was not quilting when these were popular (read:all that was available), but my mom was dabbling. In the 80s she took a class somewhere and I watched and learned, but didn't stick a toe in the water for a while longer. Now I'm just as addicted as she is! But these fabrics are good memories and I still get some in donations for the kitty sewing I do.
ReplyDeleteSo nice to be putting the blocks together Denice.
ReplyDeleteI love those fabrics, such great colours and the quality of the fabrics was so much better then.
Great history lesson. I just began learning to sew in 1971. My mum never sewed so I continued to teach myself after an inspiring home economics class at school in year 8.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure of the year, but it seems to me, as a little girl, dresses were made out of them (or was it just memories of watching Little House on the Prairie). Hay, by the way, the actress that played Laura Ingles was in Utah last week at a QUILT RETREAT! How cool is that?
ReplyDeleteI am glad you are rescuing them...We don't use the term calico for printed fabric like these - Calico to us is an off white plain fabric...but in the mid 80s when I started patchwork - mostly what we could get was from the states.
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