Fantastic Vintage Fabric of the Week - Goombay Bahamian Song

Goombay Music - Papas Beat the DrumsVintage Moygashel Cotton Fabric

My favorite find of the week is a rare vintage fabric featuring words from a popular Goombay Bahamian song. It is just added and for sale on Revival Fabrics.

In this vintage Moygashel cotton fabric, you'll find the printed words to a popular Goombay Bahamian song, "Goombay Papas beat the drums again, Goombay Mommas havin fun again, Goombays do a wicked dance when they do the Goombay"

Printed on one selvage: Hand Print REGD Design U.K. No451013 (Copyright GT Britain Empire), the other selvage Moygashel Sea Island Cotton. You certainly can't beat the quality Moygashel, a world class fabric manufacturer.

A customer review on Amazon of the album Bahamas: Goombay 1951-195 gives a great description of Goombay Bahamian music.

Moygashel Island Cotton - selvage

Fascinating Vintage Fabric of the Week - Taki 183 - Graffiti Artist

 

This vintage 1970s fabric had me stumped. Are the letters and numbers from a high school year book, classroom room numbers, or maybe bible verses?  I had to do a bit of research to find out the meaning behind the names and numbers. 

The fabric is sold and no longer available, but please read about TAKI 183 - Graffiti Artist Pioneer.


Take a look at the center of the photo and you will find TAKI 183 in yellow. 

It turns out that TAKI 183 was the alias of the very first graffiti artist written about in the media in 1971 by The New York Times.  Taki was the nickname of a Greek teenager that lived in New York and 183 was the number of the street he lived.

Taki soon had copycats such as The King 145, Roberta 223, Mike 38 and many others.

You can read the full story about TAKI 183 by The New York Times dated July 21, 1971.

Check out the TAKI 183 website, you'll find photos of Taki's graffiti and biography (and The New York Times article above).

To see the history of graffiti check out the short timeline clips on "Timeline of Graffiti"  TAKI 183 is the fourth clip in.

This is one historic retro fabric that I am doubtful I'll come across again.  It's been said that the last whereabouts of Taki is he owns a foreign car shop.

The Unicorn in Captivity - Unicorn Tapestries - Vintage Fabric

Recently I found a vintage fabric that is my Favorite Vintage Fabric of the Week!

Known as The Unicorn in Captivity, this fabric is based on a series of medieval Unicorn Tapestries from 1495-1505, and is based on religious symbolism. The tapestries are housed at The Cloisters in New York, a branch of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The fabric is on Revival Fabrics right now.

To read more about the incredible Unicorn Tapestries series, visit the MOMA website. Below is a photo of The Unicorn in Captivity tapestry at the MOMA

Back When Fabric was 37 cents a Yard

I have a thing for stickers. Smiley face stickers. Scratch n' sniff stickers. Those freebie address label stickers you get in the mail.

But the best kind of stickers are those that are still attached to a vintage fabric. Yes!

Here is a vintage circa 1950s fabric with an original Newberrys price sticker for 37 cents a yard.  (the fabric has sold on RevivalFabrics.com)

Also, please check out Revival Fabrics Facebook page that has photos of vintage tags and price stickers. I'm adding more soon.

‎9 yards! Vintage seersucker fabric is getting difficult to find

When I unfolded all 9 yards of this vintage seersucker fabric, I wanted to wrap myself up in all of it's cozy softness. Some seersucker fabrics can be a bit stiff feeling, but not this one.

Spring is right around the corner. With this much yardage, you could make a sleeveless dress, lightweight jacket cover up, skirt, and blouse.

It's on Revival Fabrics right now.

Gloria Vanderbilt Vintage Fabric

Oh how I love this vintage Gloria Vanderbilt fabric! It's been in my personal clutches for quite some time and I'm now offering it up to you on the website. Raise your yard stick if you are a vintage fabric pack rat --- yes, up high. That's me too and some vintage fabrics stick around with me longer than others before I put them on the website.

Gloria, I've enjoyed having you around. It's time for someone else to delight in the roses, hearts, dots, polished finish, summer colors, and seersucker texture of this fabric.

Just In! Many Vintage Novelty & Floral Fabrics

Keep an eye out on RevivalFabrics website, I recently found many really unique vintage cotton fabrics. Most are vintage cotton fabrics from the 1940s - 1950s, there are a few 1960s fabrics.

I'll add these fabrics to the website over the next month. Check out the vintage fabrics that I added today. I especially like the vintage fabric with yellow butterflies and purple background --- it's a stunning color combination.

More added soon!

Valentine's Day Vintage Fabric - Cool Sepia Colors

Here's a fun vintage 1973 cotton fabric just in time for Valentine's Day!

In this vintage fabric you'll find bears holding hearts that say "This Bears My Love for You." Cute, yes?

Not only is this an awesome design, the date of 1973 is on the selvage. This is a Klopman Mills Burlington retro fabric.

My grandmother used to hand tint family photos. If you compare a hand tinted photo (photo from Wikimedia) to the bears in this fabric, you'll notice a resemblance in the wonderfully rich sepia tones and colors.

Happy early Valentine's Day to you.

Vintage Grandma Moses Fabric - Halloween

Just added to RevivalFabrics.com is a really great vintage Grandma Moses fabric, from Moses' original painting "Halloween"

Grandma Moses was a self-taught artist. Her unique folk art style of painting made Moses one of the most successful woman artists in America during her time.

Anna Mary Robertson was born in 1860 on a farm in New York, and she also lived for a time in Virginia. Grandma Moses could have coined the phrase "it's never too late", since she started painting in her 70s and finished a painting at age 100.

At the age of 12, Moses left her childhood farm home, later married Thomas Salmon Moses, and had 10 children, five of which survived. Grandma Moses died in 1961 in Hoosick Falls, New York at the age of 101.

Moses' artwork was first discovered in a drug store window by an engineer. He marketed her art work to galleries in New York with little success; many gallery owners thought it foolish to invest in a painter in her 70s. But, after St. Etienne gallery in New York took a chance on her, Moses had a one-woman show in 1940.

Before becoming a folk art painter, Moses embroidered landscapes until arthritis settled in her hands. She then took up painting, and painted the people, things, and place in her memories.

Moses was a landscape artist with an eye toward the four seasons, as can be seen in her "Halloween" painting that speaks of Fall.

Between 1950 - 1967 the Riverdale Company manufactured fabric from many of Grandma Moses tiles and paintings.

Is that Fabric 100% Cotton or a Cotton Blend? Scrunch It!

Today in the wild world of vintage fabric, let's be mad scientists.

Here's a simple experiment to see if a fabric is 100% cotton, or if it is a cotton blend:

Take a single layer of fabric in your hand and scrunch it. Hold that scrunch for a few seconds and then let go. Do you see wrinkles, or a few slight creases? The more wrinkles you have, the more likely the fabric is 100% cotton. Cotton-polyester blends were originally manufactured to give fabric less wrinkles.

If you want to take this experiment further, and really show the world how much of a mad scientist you are, strap on a pair of goggles and whip out a lighter:

Take a strand of fiber thread from the fabric; from the end of the fabric is easiest. Burn the thread with the flame of the lighter (safely please, with a glass of water handy). The ashes of 100% cotton will burn clean. The ashes of polyester or a polyester cotton blend will be more tacky or form into a small hard ball.

The top photo is a circa 1990's cotton-polyester blend floral fabric. As you can see, after I administered the scrunch test, the fabric had very little wrinkles.

The bottom photo is a 1940s blue and white floral 100% cotton. For maximum results I applied a heavy tightly held scrunch, and as you can see, the fabric has wrinkles. With less scrunch applied, there would be less wrinkles.

Do you have any vintage fabric mad scientist experiments of your own? Leave a comment, I'd love to hear about it and try it out.

Vintage Fabric ~ Friday Favorite

Today we can take off our detective caps.

Most vintage fabrics require a bit of detective work to figure out the era. Tightly woven vintage cotton often "says" 1940s. Metallic gold print keys you into the 1950s. And if you have a mind boggling pink and orange color combination with smiling mushrooms, you know that the fabric probably hails from the groovy 1960s.

Today my favorite find is a vintage 1970s fabric with the actual manufacturer's date printed on the selvage: "1972 Russell Mills, Inc." Mystery solved. In two seconds flat. It's from 1972. wuhuu!

to heck out this vintage retro fabric