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Vintage and antique fabric sample books give us an idea of the fabrics that were available to quilt makers in the past. This is a Simplex sample book showing fabrics available from 1923 - 1924. This book contains a combination of actual fabric samples and designs printed on paper. It's sometimes hard to tell the difference between the two because they are so realistic.  Cover of this book, which is actually a collection of large cards containing fabric samples. Cards are held together inside the covers with the twine at the left in the photo.  The book contains samples of the solid colored fabrics and the printed fabrics.  Small sized light colored prints.   There are also pages with dark fabric prints in indigo, black, grey, and claret.  As a quilter and quilt collector I am naturally drawn to fabrics. New or old, I love fabrics. One of the best ways to learn about fabrics is to study books on fabrics (and quilts) and study fabrics in fabric sample books. Over the years I have been fortunate to find some great fabric sample books. Sample book dating to 1939 from Rice - Stix converters. Here they offer their "Topmost Fashions" line of cotton fabrics.  Sample book from the fall of 1939, the year of the New York Worlds Fair.   Solid fabrics in just about every hue. The "New York World's Fair Colors" are apparently the orange and blue at center bottom.  Pretty, softly colored floral prints.  Bolder or brighter colors here.  Figures on bolder colored backgrounds.  More figures on white this time.  Large sized bold colored prints. As a quilter and quilt collector I am naturally drawn to fabrics. New or old, I love fabrics. One of the best ways to learn about fabrics is to study books on fabrics (and quilts) and study fabrics in fabric sample books. Over the years I have come across some great fabric sample books, the following date to the 1930's era.  Two fabric sample books from 1936 and 1937. Ely and Walker was a large fabric manufacturer from St. Louis during the 1900's. The two large fabric sample books pictured above contain hundreds of fabric samples from the 1930's. One of their fabric lines, Quadriga Cloth, was one of their most popular dress weight cottons of the period. "Needleized" refers to the manufacturing process of piercing the fabric with needles which improves the texture or "hand".  A wide variety of solids in pastels and cheerful colors.  Cute prints that we might find in 1930's quilts.  Small prints in many colors. There are also prints that we wouldn't expect to find in 1930's quilts. One of their lines was the Quaker Chintz Prints. These were similar to fabrics from the 1800's, like the double pinks, and the yellow fabrics with small floral designs. Also fabrics in greys, blacks, navy, and darker jewel toned prints. Prints like this can throw off our quilt dating if we are not aware that they were still available in the 1930's - 40's.  Quaker Chintz Prints in double pinks and yellow.  Blacks and greys similar to mourning prints, not what we would expect to find in 1930's quilts. There were many other prints from this period that we may not recognize as 30's prints.  Colorful jewel toned floral prints.  Bold bright larger scaled prints.  Beautiful delicate floral dress prints.  Presenting this early crib quilt, made during the 1840 - 50's period for a well loved (and lucky) baby. The small size of this quilt, and the combination of ordinary early dress prints and unusual large floral chintz prints, make this quilt an interesting study.  The yellow chintz fabrics used in the plain squares and the borders brighten up and set off the four patches.  Great fabrics! While the pattern is a simple four patch, the fabrics that are used change this from the ordinary to the unusual, and lifting it into the realm of the rare, an early chintz crib quilt.  Notice that the quilt maker used two different fabrics for the borders, a great chintz large print fabric with a deep yellow background on two of the borders, and another unusual floral fabric for the other two borders and alternate blocks. This quilt is a good example and a reminder for us to use different scaled prints when reproducing early quilts.
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