I can hardly contain my excitement from visiting Pallant House Gallery this morning for the Lucienne Day exhibit. In fact I just didn’t want to leave! Awf, the fabulous fabrics and furniture on display – I was in my element.

My lovely Mum bought me this book recently as a gift. I had seen it advertised when I popped up to MODA last year before it was published, so I was really delighted when she surprised me with it.

They did give you this little booklet free though which summarises the exhibition.

I suppose my real interest at this exhibition was in the detail - I loved looking at the fabrics that were available in the 18th century. I was really surprised how modern they looked. The V&A have reproduced some early Liberty fabrics so I decided to buy a couple of Fat Quarters to keep in my collection. They really wouldn’t look out of place on a dress or in the home today.

The first part of the exhibition looked at very early examples of flat quilting and embroidered pieces made for affluent families and Royals. Most celebrated an occasion such as a birth or wedding. This was followed by what i’ll call political quilts – they told a message of war and loss. Honestly the detail was just mind blowing. Intertwined with these were modern examples of quilting by textile artists. There were quilts made by inmates on ships and in cells. And there were quilts used for posh hotels.

One of things I learnt was that quilt making was a way in which women could gain some financial independence a 100 years ago. Women joined a syndicate and made quilts for money to earn extra cash.

The exhibition ended with this poignant quote by Tracy Emin “Making quilts isn’t just a graphic process, wrapped up with the production of sewing. It involves a lot of thought and love. Just the time involved in the process means many things are discussed and considered concerning life.”

The Sanderson Exhibition has been open since Saturday and I was actually expecting it to be quite busy, but luckily for us there were only a few people mooching around. The exhibition started with the history of the family, which in all honestly I sort of skimmed over in favour of the fabulous vintage textiles on display.

As you walk in the textiles sort of fall from the sky. The displays mimicked those of the 50s, 60s and 70s and you feel as if you are walking excitedly into a showroom.

 I loved the wall of vintage adverts Sanderson put on in the 60s and 70s. This one shows a pile of fabrics still on the bolt- awf, what I would do to get hold of those!

 This fabric is from the 40s and actually has the utility sign on it which meant you could purchase it with your ration book during the war. Yum.

Upstairs they had a series of flip books with the original drawings for fabrics and wallpapers. Unfortunately they were under the safety of glass cabinets. They also brought you up to date with their most recent designs.

I really enjoyed the visit and would recommend it. I’ll talk about the V&A next week.

As mentioned on my home page- I've just spent the weekend clearing out my vintage fabric cupboard. I am a bit proud so thought I would post a piccy. No other news than that really..Although I did find a few gems hidden at the back which I had forgotton I had...

He was able to tell me what the fabric was made of (cotton bark-weave) and even what machine it was printed on (Aljaba Duplex)! Apparently there was so much ink on the early prints that the fabrics could be stood up on their end. The coarseness of this design was considered quite crude – perhaps representing the operators getting used to the changes in printing. Later designs were much more precise.

Bob worked as a Textile Designer from 1952 when Ben Crabtree started up Crabtree Fabrics Ltd. Crabtree were the main contractor using Heaton Mills near Manchester, England. Along with printing, fabrics were prepared for printing and other processes with bleaching and dyeing of cottons, and later man-made fibres, polyester, nylon.

Crabtree Fabrics were produced for furnishings, principally curtains. I asked if Crabtree collaborated with any art designers like it’s counterparts such as David Whitehead in the 1960’s. Bob said that most the designs were bought from freelance designers or design studios around Manchester or ideas were given to a studio who produced sketches. So no particular designer was collaborated with, although it was mentioned that Ben Crabtree bought from Conrad in the early days. I suspect the reason for this was that the fabrics produced at Crabtree were mass market and cheaper.

Here is another example of the sort of fabrics Crabtree produced. Thunderbirds were produced under licence in the mid 60's. The irony is that these are worth a fortune now, so they may have well been produced using a famous designer!

Bob continued to work for Crabtree Fabrics as Export Manager and travelled widely in Europe & Scandinavia in the late 50's and 60's. When the Transfer Paper side of the Group was introduced he moved to Heaton Mills and ran Transfer Paper Printers Ltd., from 1972 until Heaton Mills closed in 1984.

When the mill closed Bob set up his own printing company acquiring the machines used and in recent years has scrapped perfectly good machinery and about 2000 rollers of the over 3000 they had.

Thanks Bob for an interesting discussion.

My lovely friend Shona and I braved the very early morning and chilly weather to queue for the Angels Vintage Costume Sale in Wembley last weekend. We arrived at 6am just before the hoards, but we certainly weren’t the first. People had been sleeping in their place since the night before!

You might expect that getting there that early allowed you a little time inside to start ferrying through the boxes, but you’d be wrong. Instead the organisers just decided to let everyone in at once resulting in what can only be described as a stampede. I lost Shona immediately, buried amongst the 1960’s dresses and 1970’s coats.

I personally found the whole experience a bit hectic. The concept was a good one– there were two bags on offer- fill and large bag for £50 and a small bag for £20, however, this just encouraged people to shovel anything in to the bags and then find a corridor and try everything on making it impossible to move about.

Shona got some good items, but a lot of what was on offer was either stained or broken so not brilliant. Overall a good experience, but would I go again? Nop.

I travelled down to Devon last Thursday to stay with my Mum over Christmas. My Mum is a bit like me in that she collects everything. I love looking on her shelves - it's like visiting Waterstones. There doesn't seem to be anything she doesn't know about crafting. We were trawling through some boxes yesterday and Mum pulled out these beautiful tapestries from the 1940's. She was given them 10 years ago by a friends mum and has been meaning to finish them ever since. She was also given all the silks.

I'm not usually a fan of embroidered pieces, but these are so vibrant in colour and I love the intricate detail. Mum has given me some books on Victoria embroidery so I'm having a stab at it. I think it will take me a while to get to the standard of the lovely old lady that started these.

I recently came across a beautiful oriental themed fabric made by Warner Brothers. This is UK based textile mill that was set up in the 19th century, unfortunately like many British mills it went into administration in 1990. There has been a revival in the interest in Warner Brothers recently though because the entire contents of the Warner Archive came up for sale! Awf can you imagine getting your hands on that! It included 80,000 examples from between 1820 and 1970. My fabric was from the 70’s so not sure it would have made the cut.

The archive was set up by Frank Warner when the mill opened and included samples of his own collection from when he was learning the trade. Warner Brothers was a really important manufacturer and went out it’s way to create unique textiles patenting new weaves and employing up and coming artists to design for them.

The entire collection now resides in the Braintree Museum