QUILTS & FABRIC: PAST & PRESENT


Saturday, September 4, 2010

Document and Reproduction: Sparta

Document

The document print for the Sparta fabric in my Arnold's Attic collection dates to about 1880-1900. I called it Sparta after a place name in Arnold's neighborhood.

It's an eye-catching print---little shredded wheat bites and pink commas floating on a carmel-colored grid. So modern looking it's hard to believe it's 1880.



That combination of brown and bright pink was hot in the 1880s.

When I am coloring a whole collection I have to think about the all-over effect, so I decided against the pink. And I changed the colors by greening up the tans and shifting the carmels to red so all the prints would go together as a group.


Reproduction

Above are the other colorways in the collection

Roseanne Smith fussy-cut the little spirals out for the inner points in her mariner's compass quilt.


It's a 4-Block quilt top made with paper-pieced designs in Arnold's Attic prints.

More on Sparta:
After I received the fabric I realized I'd seen that reprint before. Somebody else reproduced it a few years ago. What the heck! It's a great print.

6 comments:

  1. Love this line so quickly chose it for a charm sq blog-along I wanted to join. :)

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  2. I like the fabrics of Arnold's attic so much,I hope the arrived verry soon here in the Netherlands,Bep

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  3. Barbara,
    Was excited to see the sparta fabric back since all of mine in my stash is gone. Waiting for the double pinks in the soft clear pink to reappear too
    kathy

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  4. Have you mentioned that this line includes plaids and stripes? I just discovered that yesterday. I love plaids and stripes and can't ever find enough of them. Thanks for including them this round! If you want, tell us more sometime about your fabric design process. Very interesting.

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