Document & Reproduction: Arnold's Attic

Brown and bronze combinations,

 reproductions from Arnold's Attic from Moda.

The prints reproduce style from the 1880-1910 period.

Choosing colors for a reproduction fabric collection involves copying the shades that old dyes created.

Arnold's Attic echoes fabrics that Arnold inherited from his Aunt Alice, who collected prints over 100 years ago.

Browns combined with blues, pinks and khaki shades.

Color inspiration for Arnold's Attic.

The dyes that created these brown prints were synthetic, created in test tubes, rather than the older natural dyes like madder and quercitron that also dyed cotton shades of brown.

A few prints from 1880-1910 from my collection

It's not the individual colors that were so innovative in the 1880's but the color combinations.

The new dyes allowed the designers to easily put khaki greens, salmon pinks and brick reds side-by-side  like the document print above.

Aunt Alice seems to have loved the new shades. Many prints in the bronzey greens and browns have survived in the boxes in Arnold's attic. One of the most innovative combinations was steel blue with earth-tone greens and reds.

I've tried to recreate that color combination in the Arnold's Attic collection. I called the blue Alice blue after Arnold's aunt. (The original Alice blue was named for President Theodore Roosevelt's daughter.)

Ohio Autumn print from Arnold's Attic in Alice blue.

Carol Gilham Jones made a small star quilt featuring the blues and oranges. She added a solid blue to coordinate with the Alice blue prints in the collection.