Repro Prints Made in the USA!

What's new? 

Reproduction prints from Paintbrush Studio!

We are extremely excited to introduce you to a brand new collection, Vintage Shirtings & Dress Prints 1880-1910 from Barbara J. Eikmeier!

This is a true American collection--the Vintage Shirting and Dress Prints are 100% reproduced in the United States of America. That means the cotton was grown here, the yarn was spun here, the fabric was woven here, and the final goods were printed right here in the USA. (So it's no surprise that the collection features prints in shades of red, white, and blue!)

Meet Barb:

I am a quilter, author (4 books with Martingale), teacher, and designer. My grandmother was a professional dressmaker; I think it's in my genes to sew. I learned how in 4H when I was about nine, so it's always been part of my life.  I am a member of the American Quilt Study Group, The Applique’ Society, and The National Quilting Association, and I have long had an interest in vintage textiles. I have two grown children and I live in Lansing, Kansas with my husband, Dale, and an ever-changing entourage of family pets.
 

Designing a line of reproduction prints was the perfect fit for Barb; she collects old quilts and was able to use fabrics from antique scrap bags and some unfinished blocks and tops to being putting the Vintage Shirtings and Dress Prints collection together. When a friend showed up at a sewing day with a quilt top she'd just picked up at a yard sale, Barb fell in love. "It had indigo fabrics that I'd never seen before, and the pieces in the quilt were large--7" equilateral triangles--so I could really see the details in the fabric."

Working with Fabri-Quilt, Barb narrowed down the time period for the collection to 1880-1910, and added a claret red, cadet blue and black mourning prints from that era to the indigo and white/cream shirting prints. The result?

We asked Barb to share more detail about this historically-based collection.

Q. Can you tell us more about shirting prints?
Barb: They are fabrics with light colored backgrounds--cream or white--with stripes or small scale motifs. They were used for men’s shirts, children’s clothing, women’s shirtwaists. They were marketed in the Sears & Roebuck catalog and called shirtings.

Q. Tell us more about the indigos.
Barb: The women of this era wore silk and wool when they went to town, but around the house they preferred cotton day dresses. When the dress prints first became available, the marketing for them was that they were washable, and they were called "washable dress prints." Some people refer to these indigo blues as washday blues.

Q. And what about the black mourning prints?
Barb: In that era, women wore black for a year after someone died, and they were called black mourning prints. Both the black mourning prints and the claret prints are very specific to the 1880-1910 time frame and I really wanted to include them in this line. When you look at an antique quilt from then, the quilts have lots of different scraps in them, probably made using the leftovers from sewing for the family. The indigo the mourning prints and the claret all show up together with the shirtings.

Q. Can you show us some of your favorite prints from the collection?
Barb: I love the small leaf print--it is appears in three different colors.

These little bouquets always look so cheerful when I'm sewing with them--they came from the antique yard sale quilt and are like nothing I've seen before. 

This is my favorite shirting print out of the whole group:

This mourning print--I love how unique it turned out!

I really like all the deep indigos as well--ask me again tomorrow and I might name three different prints--I like them all!

See the entire Vintage Shirting and Dress Prints collection here; and check back soon--we'll be sharing quilts and projects made with these fabrics as well!
Find out more about Barb, her fabric collection, and her quilts here.