Liberty of London & William Morris fabrics

This month I was very lucky to be the winning bidder (after a bit of fierce competition!) on four large boxes of vintage Liberty and Sanderson fabrics. They belonged to a lady from the Lake District who had obviously made a trip to the Liberty store two or three times a year mainly during the 70's and 80's and couldn't resist buying some lovely fabrics everytime!

Who could resist going into such a lovely Arts and Crafts building? And then to find inside.........

....row upon row of fabulous fabrics. So Mrs M. came back to Cumbria with Veruna wool, Tana Lawn, silks and linen union. She bought scarves, plain silks, sateens and tweeds. She made much of the fabric into clothes and furnishings but, like many of us, her eyes were too big for her capacity to use up all the fabric (despite the fact that she lived to be 92!). So now my cupboards (and other places!) are stocked.

However as I have started listing these fabrics on eBay they have been flying off the shelf and on to new homes and new crafters who, no doubt, will make beautiful furnishings and other items with them.
I also have a number of scarves and silks listed that range from the Arts and Crafts era of William Morris to the very retro look of the 1950's.

                             Art Nouveau design

                    1950's London Landmark scarf

Blithefield design

Rare Dokkum design made for Liberty

Whilst most of the fabrics have the design name on the selvedge and are therefore identifiable, many are quite rare as they belong to a design line that has been discontinued for some time. Most are designs made for Liberty, but there are also designers such as Campbell Collier (Spice Trail) and Munro & Tutty.  There are also two or three large quantities of silks bought in India from Hayagrivas Silk House in Chennai - probably sari lengths.