fabric — 2014 — The 21st Century Matriarch

It’s time again for the monthly post about eBooks that are freely available on the Internet. The three below are my favorites for April 2014.

Boston Architectural College. The year book of the Boston Architectural Club: containing examples of modern architecture. Boston Architectural Club. 1929. Available from the Internet Archive here. There are quite a few year books available but I picked this one to highlight because it has pictures of the Bok Tower. I created the collage below with pictures from this 1929 book (black and white) and some that I took last November. The antennae (lightning rods?) have been added.

French Silk Sample Book. 1895. Available from the Internet Archive here. This is a book of actual silk swatches that has been scanned! The surprise to me was how ‘modern’ some of the fabric patters were. I included some of them in the collage below.

Stuart, James. Revett, Nicholas.The antiqvities of Athens. London: J. Haberkorn. 1762. Two volumes available on the Internet Archive: Volume 1 and Volume 2. This was a reference in one of the Roman Architecture lectures on Coursera and I was thrilled to find the books available on the archive. I appreciated the attention to detail in the drawings. They must have taken pains to get exact measurements of many of the buildings….and some of them were in much better shape in 1762 than they are today.

Looking around my closet - I find quite a few fabrics with botanical images.

Some images are made with embroidery - done with a machine like on the neckline of a dressy T-shirt and big shirt….or hand done on the artisan shirt.

There is a saguaro cactus made with points of metal on a black T-shirt.

There is a poinsettia made with folds of a one-size-fits-all top. The picture in the slide show below is the top when it was on the hanger. There is additional white that shows when it is on a person.

I bought a skirt with a red and black border at the thrift store. The flowers are glittery while the background leaves are black - very dramatic.

I like the rose of the tapestry jacket…..and based on the comments I get when I wear it, others do too.

All in all - I like the plant images on clothes. How many botanical fabrics do you find in your closet?