Some of our couture silks...

This fabric has the perfect 60's design - so Scandinavian! We have it both red and black colourways, I am fairly sure...silk twill and pure retro!

This fabric has the perfect 60's design - so Scandinavian! We have it both red and black colourways, I am fairly sure...silk twill and pure retro!

Another striking silk from the collection - an amazing abstract botanical design, silk twill. Original mid-60's. Super fabric and still one of my favourites...I think we bought this one in black as well...

This is one of my favourite silks from the collection - pure retro, pure mod and just so glorious! It is a silk twill from the early 60's...

This was one of the first bolts we sold out of...original modernist silk, made in France. True dot and stripe design, manufactured for formal day wear, believe it or not...

The fabric above was a gorgeous bright fine twill silk, original 60's and manufactured for after 5 evening wear.

This fine fabric was manufactured for day wear - lightweight silk blend that feels divine. Super bright and oh so mod...

The fabric above is a glorious 1060's silk twill, manufactured for evening wear. Amazing design and use of colourway...

Retro mod! The fabric above has a 3D box design in red, black and white. We had a whole bolt of this piece - original early 60's (1962 to be exact - the bolt still had the original tag) and it was woven nylon....

I came across these shots when I went fossicking for the couture estate sale photos I featured in the previous post - these are old photos, so apologies for the resolution, but they feature some of the beautiful rare couture fabrics we imported from that estate sale. We have some of them left in stock - others, I am sad to say, have found new homes around the globe. One does get attached to fabrics...sometimes I truly am sad to see them go....

If we disappear for two days or so you'll know it's because our son has finally arrived - so if you don't hear from me in the next couple of days you know why! Counting down...rather impatiently, too, I might add....one forgets how uncomfortable late pregnancy truly is....

Couture fabric auction...drool...drool...drool

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We have been lucky with our fabric purchases at times - most of our estate collections are purchased locally and usually we are approached, or sometimes we are lucky to simply come across estates for sale that include the vintage fabrics. Other times we find out about auctions from international sellers - and a couple of years ago we were lucky enough to purchase fabric from this couture collection that went on auction in the US. We were lucky to pick up a lot of the silks and laces, most of which we have sold, although I would think we still have at least 25 pieces of the collection with us here.

The auction was completed over two days, with many bolts sold in groups to speed things up. All of the fabrics you see are original vintage, with many purchased in the 60's in France and Italy. Could you imagine an auction like this here in Australia...I would need some severe ventilation and no doubt CPR by the end of it!

Today is a day of fabric auction heaven...and time to drool :)

So bad - but just so good! Retro interiors...

Of course, being vintage fabric lovers we are also huge fans of original retro interiors. We've just relocated into a huge original 1971 house, complete with orange St George oven and hotplates...hilarious and very kitsch. Brown everywhere, wood everywhere...glass walls, door panelling...ahhhh, life away from beige and the 80's!

When renovating we feel it is really important to strike the right mix of modern and retro. For instance, we have shag rugs in almost every room - red, orange, brown, white etc etc...we love them and wouldn't have a home without them...even if they are dust catchers! We also use quite a lot of retro lamps instead of lighting and our decor is mainly teak in some rooms and art deco in others...all with Lynch and Tretchikoff prints, nude prints and lots of wonderful glassware and retro pieces.

Hmmm....how far do you go when renovating when these interiors were deemed some of the worst in 1974? It's from the Eurobad Exhibition - funny, aren't they? But some of them are just sooooo cool!

How they ever got carpet into bathrooms is beyond me...

Katrina Kaye - gorgeous vintage fabric recycled bags!

How divine are these recycled bags? Katrina Kaye, a new label based in the Netherlands, is a happening thing on Etsy. The team behind the label recycle army bags and rebadge them with gorgeous Scandinavian fabrics...super, super cool....I wish nappy bags were this cool...hey, maybe there's an idea in there????

You can visit the Katrina Kate Etsy shop here - enjoy!

Gosh - choosing a favourite is so so hard...the more retro geometric the better, I think! But I do so love it when I see vintage fabrics being used in this way...recycling does make one warm and fuzzy :)

New gorgeous vintage fabric arrivals...

Some of these pieces featured today came from the same estate - I love getting fabrics from estates as the designs and quality always reflect a fabric lover. The piece above (sorry - unironed!) screams Pucci...it's a large scale mod cotton and we have around 2y of it, I think...

Unironed, again - sorry! If you look closely you can see the most darling parasols and umbrellas...such a cute feminine fabric...I think we have around 3y of this...

Rare stretchy late 60's dress fabric - so hard to come by. A very pretty print, too...

Super rare early 50's cotton - maybe rayon. Came from the same estate - a beautiful fabric with a colourway so of that time...I think we have around 4y of this, too...lucky!

Rare 1960's woven dress fabric, from a mill in the USA. We have two pieces of this - would have been a border print on a dress or a skirt. Very cool stuff!

A lovely 70's bright seersucker - 3y of this in stock, I

Not much of this instock, but it was great to find an original mod piece - vintage 70's and very uber cool!

A great piece of vintage cotton - 4y in stock, I think...

As most of you know we are keenly awaiting the arrival of our new family member - only two weeks to go now! Thus we haven't been able to pop a lot of new arrivals or stock onto the website - so I thought I would give you a visual intro to what may go up next...along with the hundreds of other fabrics I REALLY need to get up :)

That being said we were able to get up around 130 vintage sewing patterns onto ebay - click here if you would like to see them...

I am sure if there was a vintage fabric horror film ever made the title would be The Curse of Vintage Fabric : Divine Design Stalks...or something or other...

Fabrics shall go up onto the website in the near future - see here...

What I surround myself with...

I suppose letting the cat out of the bag shouldn't be a bad thing - fact is, I've always been mindful of keeping our personal lives seperate to the business. I suppose it's because I don't fundamentally trust people that I don't surround myself with...where does the fear come from? I don't know - maybe it's due to being a Mother and wanting to protect everyone...

I want to show you some new arrivals to our horde of vintage fabric - but first I also wanted to show you my favourite part of the workroom. It's the corner of my desk. It's the only part of the space that is wholly mine and devoid of vintage fabric! It's very messy but has some personal bits I adore - family photo taken years ago, old toys my Uncle played with, my gorgeous Barsony lamp my partner gave me for my birthday...Arabia, Danish candleholders...signed original Tretchikoff...and a collage I made as well as a pic of the His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Healing Buddha. Whenever I look in this corner I always feel so grounded - like life it giving me a big hug!

Ebay - vintage sewing patterns for vintage fabric!

We find a lot of old sewing patterns in the estate collections we purchase. As I don't sew (yes - you can recover from your coughing fit now!...but don't worry, I am thinking of learning!) they have always just been stashed in the 'have no idea what to do with' box. Now that I have some time of my hands waiting for the new bebe arrival I have found it quite relaxing to sit and go through each pattern one by one to check for all of the pieces and instructions.

I am putting them up on ebay for auction - you will find our auctions here. Wouldn't you love to make them with vintage fabric yardage instead of new fabric? I think the dresses would be sublime in the old original polished cottons...

Unfortunately I think I am going to run out of time to get them all up, but I'm giving it a darn good try considering I am waddling about like a duck...:)

All of the photos above are of old Vogue patterns, too...

Fornasetti fabric panel...a stunner...

Designers come and go - but Fornasetti is uber cool here in Australia at the moment, and I dare say worldwide. When I came across this I think I audibly groaned - I would love this up on my lounge wall! Actually, I'd love it anywhere, I think...

It makes me ponder how dynamic and powerful design can be. New fabrics are in a complete Scandinavian revolution at the moment - there's lots of minimalistic brightly coloured medium scale prints featuring animals, botanicals, houses etc etc...but when you look at this piece you realise how individual designs on textiles really can be just so, so wonderful. I love fabrics in panel format, but you don't come across it a great deal in the newer fabrics...

You can find the Fornasetti panel on ebay USA (but they ship worldwide) - click here to view it. There's three days to go on the auction....

Perhaps someone would like to buy it for me as an early Christmas pressie, LOL!

Vintage fabric - Inspiration Swatch Packs

Fab retro linen Scandinavian bird pack - five birds per pack, each slightly different.
Only two packs made - one is at Meet Me at Mikes and the other will soon be for sale on our website.

A stunning collection of 40's cottons - that decade had some of the prettiest colourways on the 20th century, we feel....Only two packs made - one is at Meet Me at Mikes and the other will soon be for sale on our website.

She rocks, doesn't she? The girl at the bottom is a rare hippie Sanderson fabric - unusual style for them. This pack is all novelty browns and greens - Only two packs made - one is at Meet Me at Mikes and the other will soon be for sale on our website.

A rare kiddies novelty pack - these novelty designs are getting harder and harder to source...they seem to be quite collectable with all types of fabric lovers. Only two packs made - one is at Meet Me at Mikes and the other will soon be for sale on our website.

We've been busily working on getting together some vintage fabric packs for the new Meet Me at Mikes store to open next week in Melbourne - city end of Brunswick St, Fitzroy, Vic, Australia. We started doing these fabric packs some months ago to great success. We realised there were lots of crafters out there who keep an eye out for smaller pieces of rare and unique fabric. It's a rarity, we think, offering these packs...we can't find anything like them worldwide. Seeing as most of our stock is rare, unique and oh so hard to find, we thought there would be crafters out there who wish to use smaller pieces we would otherwise trash...horror, horror, horror!

We don't trash the larger pieces - just scraps...says she in horror!! But I am slowly realising even that is bad when we're talking about vintage fabrics, so we're keeping all of our strips and offcuts now, too.

We decided to call the new range of packs Inspiration Swatch Packs for several reasons. Number one was largely due to the gorgeous unique designs - it seems a lot of people use the textile designs as 'inspiration' rather than actually using them. Secondly, the fabrics range in sizes - some just 20cm x 25cm all the way up to large fat quarter size. Thus the 'Swatch' term instead of the 'Stash' term.

Meet Me at Mikes has around 20 packs and we'll be putting around 15 packs on the website - www.vintagefabrics.com.au - in the next couple of days...so stay tuned...

Vintage fabric - Inspiration Swatch Packs

We've been busily working on getting together some vintage fabric packs for the new Meet Me at Mikes store to open next week in Melbourne - city end of Brunswick St, Fitzroy. We started doing thes

Dutch-Details - a fabulous ebay store...

I'd better start this blog with some vintage fabric stuff, eh?

This is an ebay store located in Amsterdam and usually has an extensive collection of gorgeous super graphic, novelty and botanical Scandinavian fabric from the 60's and 70's. The good bit is the fabric is all on original bolts and postage isn't too high to Australia, considering the fabric weight.

You can find their ebay store here - some of their fabrics are pictured above...gorgeous, aren't they?