The fabric of my life

It's about time this blog started living up to its name! I have collected fabric since I was in my teens, always making a beeline for the curtains piled high at jumble sales in search of barkcloth beauties to turn into skirts, dresses and shirts. As teenagers we even had a stall in our local Saturday market called 'Swallows and Amazons" selling these homemade creations along with vintage clothes and hand printed dresses (it never rained in those days!)

In more recent years I have been developing other uses for these fabrics including cushions, bags, brooches, collages, purses and stuffed animals. No fragment goes unused as I am only too aware that it's amazing that this fabric has survived 50 years or so. I love the distinctive 50s atomic designs as well as the more pop-style flowers and swirls and, through work by people like Jane Foster I have become a fan of Scandinavian designers such as Stig Lindberg.

I'm not sure why I love these fabrics so much. But they make my heart sing! So each week I plan to have a little display of my fabrics. This will also help me organise my fabrics a bit more and build up a set of samples so I don't get carried away snipping out all those cats and dogs! If any of you have these fabrics as well it would be lovely to hear from you, especially what you've used it for (or plan!) or if you know who the designer was, or if I get my facts wrong! As this week is feeling springy, I've started with some of the green and flowery fabrics I'm working with for the Handm@de Fair. First up is the beautifully named "All in a row" by Genia Sapper for Moygashel.

This next one I love. It is labeled 'Home Fashion' and comes in a heavy weight silky linen. The final one has no selvedges, so the designer is unknown to me. At the top of this page is a heavy cotton fabric I use a lot, also unnamed.