Okay. Yes, I know it has been a while since I posted. Well, it's been a bumpy year. One I never, ever, ever saw coming. But life is long and life can be very hard. My empathy grows with every passing day for anyone with struggles or loves someone with struggles. I am not exempt and hopefully, happier times are forthcoming for all. That's all I'm going to say about that. Thank you for reading.

Now let's get on with the fun stuff.  One of my favorite things is browsing the pages of an old catalog - specifically old fabric in old catalogs.  Yard goods were everywhere from JC Penney to  Montgomery Ward to Sears Roebuck to Bloomingdale's.  Looking at old catalogs gives me clues in dating patterns and fabrics that are older than I am, but what happened last week has never happened before!

I found an exact fabric that I own!

Not once.

Not twice.

THREE TIMES!

And in the same catalog!  

Enter the Sears 1953 spring catalog.  

Looking at some printed percales,

I spied the bright chevron in the middle and couldn't believe it.

I had it upstairs in my sewing room!

It was 36" wide and I thought perhaps it was from the late 60s.

WRONG!  1953!

Next I saw this barkcloth drapery fabric and I gasped, "I got that!"

Here's the proof in "Sunshine Yellow."

The last match was nothing short of a revelation and an education!   I had these two pieces of a very weird fabric that were buried in a box of vintage yardage that I bought at an estate sale.  In all my experience, I had never seen such a fabric.  Ever.  

It looked like a sheer seersucker or plissé, but felt like paper.

After burning a bit of it and watching it sizzle and drip,

I knew it was synthetic.

Truthfully, I considered it an abomination,

thinking the only possible use for it would be some kind

of artistic expression with it's papery, synthetic weird crispness.

Like bunch it up into a gigantic strange flower - it would hold the shape.

I thought surely it was an invention of the 70s.

One that failed and disappeared quickly.

I was right, but off by two decades!

Re-enter the 1953 Sears Catalog.

 Puckered nylon.  What?

And as you can see by the next year's catalog,

it was marked down and already heading

for the obsolescence graveyard.

There's always more to learn,

Just Being Childish!

Maybe it has something to do with me becoming a new grandma,

but my last four vintage fabric finds have been juvenile prints!

I think this first one is the oldest - the look, the feel, the faded fold.

For some reason, I want to say 1930s.  Could it be?

 Cupid bear is holding a 30's-green bow and arrow.

The girl's eyes seem Betty Boopish to me.

Look at the stockings and shoes.

36" width - four yards - cotton

Next is the kitty, sheep, goats, bunnies, ducks...

...but mostly kitties print.  I'd say early 70s on this one.

36" wide - 5 1/2 yards - cotton

 

This one is the mystical Marco Polo fabric!

How do I know it's the great Italian explorer of China - Marco Polo?

 Not because the drawings look like Marco sporting his favorite Tartar outfit...

 

It's all because of the wonderful information found on the selvage!
And you know how I love selvage information!

There are about nine yards of this 36" Little Golden Book Fabric.

Love the robin's egg blue.  

Maybe my Mandarin-speaking,

China-dwelling son would like this fabric for my new grand-daughter's nursery...

 

And if you're as curious as me, you would google the selvage-mentioned 

Marco Polo Little Golden Book and find out it was published in 1954.

So this fabric is from 1954 and the book is for sale on the internet.

And finally, we have this sweet yarn ball playing kitty,

hat-wearing, butterfly eating, ducky marching print. 

Seems kind of 40s-50s to me.  Maybe I'm wrong.

I have only a couple yards of this 36" width cotton.

 Lots of room for imagination in these sweet prints.

Resistance is Futile

If you execute a Google image search on the word, "Borg," you're going to see a lot of this: rigid and not very aerodynamic, the space ship of the drone-like, assimilating, arch enemy of Captain Picard and his Next Generation crew, the Godzilla of the galaxy, the Borg.

But this isn't my Trekkie husband's blog.  It's mine and as you all know, I like to talk fabric.  Did you know there is Borg fabric?  Made by Borg Textiles.  It's vintage, too! 

Here's a woman in a cube -- but not a Borg cube.  An ice cube!

And she isn't cold at all because she's wearing a Borg fur coat.

Apparently it was easier to find a needle in a haystack

than a coat made out of this soft, luxurious fabric - mostly sold out of NYC.

Enjoying it's heyday in the 1950s-70s, Borg Fabrics was said to be the largest producer of "deep pile" textiles in the world with manufacturing plants in England, Canada, Belgium, Connecticut, Georgia and whaddya know - their headquarters right here in my back yard in Delavan, Wisconsin!  I consider them the pioneers of fake fur - soft and yummy fake fur.  Or should I say "faux?"  If you believe this ad for their high quality coats, it's "soft and shimmery, pours like cream, light as a whisper, warm as the Golf Stream, and scoffs at moths."  And of course, "looks more like fur than fur itself."

According to this ad that probably wouldn't fly in our PC world of today, you shouldn't "blame the hunter" for mistaking this chic woman (see mounted head) wearing a Borgana coat for a prized hunting trophy.

Do you think turbans will come back any time soon?

 Not quite Zoolander's trademark "blue steel" look.

"You'd think it was born in the jungle."  Among the names Borg used for their fur lines were, "Borgana, Borgazia, and Borglura which was a short-lived longer pile fur which was not popular because it made women "look too fat" according to a 1957 Milwaukee Journal article.

Borg for the whole family.

Borg fabric coats are still popular with the vintage crowd because they have held up well.  You can find cozy coats of all kinds on sites like eBay and Etsy.  Here's a recent offering from Goodwill's online store.

This 1966 moss green (some might say "avocado") green bath set spills the beans that Borg Fabrics might be branching out from their lux coats roots.  Remember toilet tanks wrapped in fur?  I do.  But let's not stop there when we can also cover the scale, the waste basket, the tissue box, and the TOILET BRUSH HOLDER!!! In addition to apparel and home furnishings, Borg fabrics were also used for industrial applications including car shammies, paint rollers, work mitts and gun case linings.

The reason I researched Borg Fabrics?  While trolling around my local thrift store a few months ago, I noticed a large box (which I bought) of fake fur samples all with Borg tags.

And I didn't accept my husband's suggestion

that they had something to do with the Star Trek Borg...

...even if the Borg Fabric logo is surprisingly similar to the Star Trek Insignia.

Assimilate that.

The Novelty of It All

Talk about thrift store scores! I recently purchased two very kitchy, very cute cocoa colored novelty prints at my favorite resale shop a few weeks apart.

 The subject of the first novelty print is bowling.

4 yards of 35" cotton.

Back in the 50s when I suspect this fabric was made,

bowling was HUGE!

Need confirmation that it was the 50s?

Check out the names on the scorecard.
Charles, Alec, George, Tom and Bob...

...could have been one of my dad's leagues back in the day!

 The second novelty print depicts outer space.

Almost 2 yards - 38" wide.

Probably meant for curtains or comforter with the huge repeats.

 The first lunar expedition.

Little did they know the actual first lunar landing

was less than 20 years away!

 Spacewalking with satellite equipment.

 Piecing the space station back together?

 Looks like an Estes toy rocket.

 Another 50s fabric for sure.  Check out the diagram.
I think I need a frenetic stabilizer or a dual magneto. 

 Forget about NASA - we were the United States Space Force!

 Happy landing!