Vintage Fabrics

Uses for Vintage Fabrics

Beautiful fabrics are not just for hanging as draperies or covering a couch. Vintage and reproduction fabrics can be used in a variety of ways in rooms throughout your home.

Kitchens

Kitchens are one of the most popular places to use vintage fabrics. Flour sackcloth is a popular fabric for dishtowels. Antique dishtowels made of this fabric are often embroidered or may still have the flour company's logo stamped on them. They can be used in displays on pie safes, made into café curtains or used, as they were originally intended, to dry dishes.

Dining Rooms

Dining rooms are another popular place to use antique fabrics. Individuals, as well as savvy antique dealers, frequently use vintage fabrics to reupholster dining room sets. If you are going for an authentic touch, research the fabrics of the time period so your furniture and fabrics match.

Living Rooms

Living rooms are another great place to showcase your vintage fabric finds. Use fabrics to reupholster couches, cushions and draperies. Fabric remnants can also be used to make pillow covers or couch throws with a decorator's touch. Cover lamp shades with a patterned fabric and use under a vase on a table.

Find a great selection of fabrics for your dining room, living room and kitchen at:

• Revival Fabrics
• Interior Mall
• Rusty Zipper
• Amazon Dry Goods
• Hamilton Dry Goods

Bedrooms

Bedrooms are the ultimate place to decorate with vintage fabrics. Go Parisian with beautiful toile or rose ticking in a variety of pastel hues. Folk art is always a popular theme for bedrooms and there are plenty of quilt patterns, calicos and flannel material available. Chenille, satin and lace-edged linens are just a few of the many types of fabrics used in a bedroom. Materials can cover headboards, pillows, and bedspreads. If you have enough yardage of a fabric, the same material can also be used as window dressings.

Baby's Room

A baby's bedroom is another intriguing place to display your fabric finds. Whether you want to go folk, vintage or retro, there are great fabrics for you to use. Many calico fabrics are popular in baby bedrooms because of the small patterns. Small rose buds, ticking, Swiss dot and other miniature floral patterns are typical of this material. Irish linens and simple laces are a perfect find for a baby's bedroom.

Vintage baby and bedroom fabrics can be found at:

• Baby Cakes
• Fabric Attic
• Flannel World
• Keepsake Quilting
• Warm Biscuit

Bathrooms

Bathrooms are always a nice place to display vintage finds. Consider fabrics in this room to decorate windows, shower curtains or be used as decorative hand towels.

Purchasing Vintage Fabrics

Many vintage and retro fabrics are found in antique stores, through specialty catalogs and online. Depending on your needs, reproduction fabrics can even be specially made from antique fabric swatches you provide.

Purchase vintage fabrics by the yard online with the following merchants:

• ReproDepot
• Sharon's Antiques Vintage Fabrics
• Make Me Fabrics
• Minky Delight

Vintage Fabric Care

Although older fabrics delight looks throughout your home, there are a few words of caution when caring for them.

1. Do not place antique materials in a window or in line with direct sunlight. Old fabrics tend to fade quickly and they can disintegrate if not cared for properly. Avoid using them as curtains unless you have a backing for them.
2. All antique fabrics should be hand washed, smoothed out, and carefully hung up to dry. Subjecting them to a washing machine and dryer may render them useless and tattered.
3. Never use bleach to whiten vintage linens. Try using a mixture of 1 part lemon juice to 3 parts cool water to whiten yellowed material.
4. Do not sew an old fabric to a new one, even if they are the same pattern.