The Rickrack Rag

I’m sorry we haven’t been keeping up with our Feedsack Friday posts (nor any others for that matter) lately, but besides the several snowstorms, the usual hassles of business, and other day-to-day happenings, we’ve added something else. For the next 5 weeks, Bill will be spending 2 hours a day in a hyperbaric chamber, plus 1 1/2 hours of driving time. This seriously eats into our available work time, and unfortunately, the blog will suffer.

While I’m here, though, I thought I’d post a couple of pictures of some of the great vintage tablecloths we’ve added to our stock lately. These are all from California Hand Prints, and are some of our favorites. Clicking on any image will take you to the page for the tablecloth, where you can see more, or even buy it!

I think this pansy tablecloth is the best of all, but also like the gardenias below, and the primrose, too!

While I’m thinking of it, I’ll also mention Sharon’s Facebook page, where we’ll occasionally post something new and different. Stop by and become a fan!

The last couple of weeks have been busier than most, what with various medical appointments, sales, and then two back-to-back accumulating snowstorms. So last week we missed Feedsack Friday, and this week again we’re ill-prepared. Rather than skip it altogether, though, I thought I’d feature a selection of new sacks we recently purchased from a central Pennsylvania estate, some of which, as always, we hadn’t seen before. So here’s a selection of some of the new ones. First, some geometrics:

And then some interesting florals:

Many of these, and other new arrivals, are now available on our website, Sharon’s Antiques: Vintage Fabrics - New Arrivals.

I posted recently a post called Vintage Vintage, about the misuse of the word to designate items that aren’t really older, just inspired by older things or made to an older design. And I’ve probably mentioned before how absurd and difficult it can be to try to make a business of selling things that must be sought out and found individually, and offered for sale in whatever condition their age and experience has given them. How much more simple - and businesslike - it is to be able to order things by the dozen, bright and shiny new, and sell them one after another, never having to change the picture or advertising copy.

How much simpler, yes, but where does the joy come in? And that is the word that makes the difference. For some of us (you know who you are!) it’s all about finding that special vintage item, one with character, color, warmth, the love hand-crafted into it! It’s why we keep going to antique shows, flea markets, estate auctions and yard sales - hoping for that brief moment of elation, our heart skipping a beat on finding something wonderfully special. For instance, this Turkey red tablecloth from the Victorian era sets a festive tone for the holidays that can’t be matched by mass-produced, synthetic goods.

Because we are privileged to live in a time of abundance, in an area whose history provides such a wealth of things made and saved, preserved and treasured for generations, we have been able to enjoy this feeling of discovery more frequently than many people, and that enjoyment has accounted for a rather large accumulation of vintage treasure. This is the wealth from which our business was conceived and born, but the joy of the find is still the spark that motivates all that we offer. Hopefully the joy is passed on with many of the special items we’ve been blessed to offer.

One especially tantalizing type of find is that of the unused item, preserved in its original package, still adorned with paper labels or price tags, put away for a rainy day that never came. Again we have been lucky to find many of these, and love having them to offer on our website, like these two tablecloth sets:

Or these aprons:

But even lacking like-new condition and original labels, it’s still a thrill to find something old that has somehow avoided the ravages of time, that has become the exception and survived unscathed, or only showing slight traces of the history that used up most of its contemporaries. This is the case with so many of the quilts we find in our area, the ones that were only for nice, and were carefully stored away for generations while the workaday bedding bore the brunt of the wear and tear. So that an item lovingly crafted 150 years ago can still look like this:

So it is that we enjoy our business because we enjoy the beauty of the items, the connection with the past, and the linking of the past with people of today besides ourselves who appreciate the many qualities we nostalgically revere of days gone by.

I suppose it’s naive of me to have assumed that pristine condition in a vintage items is a desirable quality, though I’d be willing to bet that to most collectors, it is. And so in my naivete, I was surprised to recently receive this email:

Hello & Merry Christmas~
I want to start with telling you how much I did enjoy your aprons choices. I would like to interject though that you should take a little more care in your photography of the items you are advertising to sell……

It is quite obvious to me, and probably others that collect aprons that your items are reproductions and not actually VINTAGE APRONS. Look at the photographs- the aprons are pristine, unwashed, unused and have never been worn before! It can be easily deduced by any aficionado that these aprons are copies that had just been sewn probably from either migrant workers or from a foreign country for pennies on the dollar. I suggest that you wash them then partially iron them to give that a slightly worn look before photographing them.

This is just a suggestion…. I did alert a family member that was thinking of ordering from you that these aprons were not authentic vintage aprons. I’m probably not the first person to do so…..

And another immediately following:

I just took a look at your FAQ page- it is SUCH a lie that these are authentic VINTAGE products- you might want to think about changing your wording… it is totally false!!!

So we have come full circle. Apparently wear and tear is a desired commodity; pristine condition an impossibility! If I were to take these missives to heart, I’d have to change my whole philosophy. It’s not that I don’t find joy in things that have been used, on the contrary I have a special place in my heart for items that have been mended and patched, sometimes patched on top of patches, feeling the value that their owners obviously placed on them over the generations.

The Christmas greeting I received above bothers me more because I’ve been so careful to be honest, to represent what I sell as accurately as possible, and despite all of that been taken to task for gross dishonesty - for lying - based on scant and faulty evidence. Heaven knows I don’t think my pictures are all that good, and all too often the aprons are wrinkly or show a spot or something. But why, if I were selling repros, would I only have ONE of EACH?? I’m crazy enough to be in the vintage business, not crazy enough to try to pretend that new is vintage. Oh yes, and though my business is based on recycling at its best - re-use rather than new manufacture, I’ve been accused of abusing slave labor!

We spoke with this lady on the telephone, and wished her a Merry Christmas also. I think I overcame her skepicism and convinced her that we’re just a couple of people trying to make a living and preserve the best of earlier times, not to hoodwink anyone into buying shoddy merchandise produced in labor camps.

The vintage business. It is crazy, labor intensive, more a hobby than a business really. I’ve been told before that one or another of my items was new, not vintage, and had to point out that the maker whose label adorned the product had not been in business for decades. I’ve also been taken to task for having too great a markup, since the item I was selling for $30 had the tag still on showing that I had paid only $1.29. That tag was also from a store that was out of business before I was in.

I won’t be changing my business model. It’s all right there and plainly visible to an unbiased view. I have often wondered about people who find deception in everything they read or hear. I have no problem with common sense, value it highly in fact, and am the last one to accept everything at face value. But if you look, really look, you can see the difference, can’t you?

Wishing all my readers the most joyous of Christmases, or happiest of whatever holidays you may celebrate!

Quilters and others often look for fabrics in solid colors to offset or contrast with print fabrics, and for some reason solid colored feedsacks seem to be among the scarcest. We don’t find them in the same bright colors of the printed sacks; for instance, I have yet to see one in that bright lime green, nor in vivid red. Mostly what we see are subtle shades, pastels and the like. In fact, the very subltlety of the colors makes it difficult for us to post a true representation of the color on our site. We’ve been sold out of solids for a while, but here are some we’ve come across that we’re adding to our stock.

This time we found no yellows, nor pinks - but we have seen them before, along with others…

Of course, there are many, many more. One thing we’ve also found is that some folks home-dyed plain white sacks to use for their projects, but I believe that all of these were factory colors. I do have one in apricot, and one in green, with lettering from the label still on them.

After the big feast of yesterday, there were a lot of dishes to clean up. Many of us have used dishtowels made of feedsack over the years, but this week we’ll feature feedsacks with dishes, cups, saucers, plates, etc. printed right on them.

But before we get to that, by way of being thankful ourselves for everything that we have, I want to announce our Feed America feedsack give back. For every feedsack that we sell here at Sharon’s between now and Christmas day, we will donate $1.00 to Feeding America, the network of food banks that helps so much to feed the hungry people of our country. The need is greater this year than ever, and I hope we’ll be able to contribute a lot.

Many of the dishes printed on feedsacks appear to be more decorative than utilitarian, but then who wants to look at dull dishes, pots & pans?

While some are shown set on a table, others are apparently on display.

And some are clearly more appropriate for just beverages, rather than a whole meal.

That’s our selection for this week, now that all the dishes are washed, dried and put away we’ll just be thinking about getting ready for the next feast. And we hope you’ll think, when you think of feedsacks, about feeding those who are less fortunate. Make a donation that matters to your local food bank, soup kitchen or shelter.

One of the things we’re often asked is “What is your definition of vintage?”

Obviously there’s no simple answer to this one. For years we used the cutoff date of about 1960 to describe fabric as vintage, about the time selvedge widths began to exceed 36 inches. But time goes on, and things change. Many of today’s homemakers weren’t even alive in the 1950’s, or even the 1960’s, and to them, fabric/clothing from as recently as the 1970’s or 80’s seems vintage enough. Often it’s those looks that become popular again, after a few decades have passed, that define any particular person’s idea of “vintage”. In keeping with that trend, we have decided that it’s long overdue for us to add 1960’s and 70’s fabrics to our selection at Sharon’s.

Some time ago we added a few fabrics from the 50’s/60’s, some of the earlier flower-power and psychedelic prints, hopefully in the next weeks/months we’ll finally get a bit more added to our selection.

Another use of the V word has begun to irritate me more and more. It seems that many marketers out there, from small businesses to large, have realized that there is a market for vintage. Of course, it takes a special variety of insanity such as ours to try to make a business work based on only genuine vintage items; certainly a chain of retail mega-stores cannot find or maintain a marketable supply of true vintage or antique items. So of course the next best thing is newly made, vintage-style items. Take aprons, for instance. A Google search for vintage aprons will bring up a few sellers offering real aprons from the 1940’s and 50’s, but also among the top ten results are at least 4 or 5 companies offering vintage aprons - that are in fact vintage inspired but newly made, with a nod to retro design but often very contemporary. And there are more in the paid listings. Fine, it’s not that these items shouldn’t be available, there might never be enough real vintage to go around if everyone wants them. But to call them vintage aprons rather than retro or vintage-style aprons is at least a little bit deceptive to my mind. What do you think?

When you search for vintage aprons, are you hoping to find ones like these, from our stock at Sharon’s, or something new?

We looked up the term Vintage on the web and found, along with the definitions relating specifically to wine, where the “vint” in vintage comes from, a Wikipedia article on vintage clothing. In saying that vintage is a euphemism for old, they assert that vintage clothing generally dates from the 1920’s to the 1970’s. They also mention the term retro, which they interpret, as I do, to mean in a vintage style, harking back to earlier styles. I don’t believe that anyone refers to new clothing as vintage, no matter how retro the style may be. So somehow aprons have become an exception to this rule, I don’t know why, and I beg to disagree!

I should also mention that a search for vintage fabric also turns up new fabrics in great numbers; here, however, most sellers have the grace to use the term vintage reproduction fabrics, though some few do not. Precision in language is not something for which the internet will receive a high grade.

Today we got the November issue of Country Living Magazine in the mail - and there’s a feature article on aprons. One of the aprons shown is this one:

Made from feedsack, this one’s featured as an example of 1930’s style aprons. Aprons were one of the many popular uses for feedsacks, and there were certainly many of them made. Here’s a selection of some of our favorites:

We think that feedsack probably accounts for a third of the bib aprons we see around here, fewer of the shorties.

There are always a few available on our site: Sharon’s Vintage Aprons

A one-patch quilt is defined as a quilt that uses patches all of one shape and size, except perhaps for the edges or borders. When the shapes used are squares, the result can be uninteresting if care is not taken to form an overall pattern, of color, tone or other elements. This late 19th century PA one-patch uses a number of elements to heighten the interest.

First, and most obviously, the squares are set on point. They are then arranged by color and tone to form a center medallion with concentric borders, surrounded by a pattern of rays of lighter color at the centers and corners. While rich browns and reds serve for the majority of the pieces, the lighter, brighter colors focus the eye on the center. For additional interest, many of the squares are fussy-cut from chintz or cheater cloth prints.

With one exception, these fussy-cut squares are also concentrated toward the center of the quilt. But the single exception is a notable one - in the upper left corner of the quilt (as shown in the first picture) is a single square cut from cheater cloth featuring Dickens’ character Mr. Pickwick!

This fabric has apparently been reproduced at some time in the 20th century, as I found a listing for it as an Everglaze Vat Colors fabric on Etsy, which has apparently since sold out. The antique fabric, however, has richer tones, and retains no glaze, so I’m unsure if it ever had one.

There’s a great variety of late 19th century brown prints, including paisleys, chocolate browns, tans and madders.

And to go with all the browns and paisleys on the quilt top, the back is done in a brown floral and paisley stripe.

I’ll be adding this quilt to my inventory of antique quilts at Sharon’s in the next few days.

For years, a certain pink rose in my garden, “First Prize”, had been my favorite among all roses. This is the rose I’ve used in all my eBay listings for years, and featured on the tablecloth below when I submitted what turned out to be the winning entry in the September 2003 contest of the Vintage Tablecloth Lovers’ Club. One of our friends from the club, Holly, has a blog, The Pink Rose Cottage, that we link to here.

While last week we featured red roses on Feedsack Friday, this week we’re featuring the even more popular pink rose. Though pink roses may be more popular today than back in the days of feedsacks, thanks to shabby decorating trends, there were still plenty of them in the 1940’s and 50’s. They come in all sizes and in any number of arrangements, on various colored backgrounds. Large:


And small:


And all sizes in between:


As you can tell, we could go on and on with pink roses, but we’ll have to limit ourselves. But there isn’t one of these sacks that isn’t pretty, so we just had to show a few more: (more…)

Early this year we concentrated on cherry patterned feedsacks; it seems there are more cherries than any other single fruit in feedsack fabric designs. And while there are many designs that feature a variety of different fruit, perhaps the next most popular to the cherry are the apple and then the strawberry. It’s not yet apple season, but the strawberries in the garden are ripening now!

While we found cherries in a wide variety of colors, the vast majority of strawberries on sacks are red, a few yellow. Here’s a pair of realistically depicted ones that are larger than life size:

These three border print feedsacks feature red and yellow strawberries also; I believe there are other variations of this pattern as well:

These sacks feature just berries, no leaves, blossoms or other designs:

Strawberries in red and blue:

Strawberries in stripes:

And strawberries in circles:

One color we didn’t see was white strawberries; but we have white wild strawberries in the garden. And if you don’t look at them, they taste as red as any other.