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Daily Swatch: Pattern Types – Two-Way
Cycling fabric from the 1950s collection of The Fabric of My Life (Donna Flower) on Flickr.
Daily Swatch: Pattern Types — Two-Way
The Daily Swatch features a piece of vintage fabric (almost) every day. Themes change periodically. Please add your own examples of the theme to the True Up and/or Vintage Fabric Flickr pools.
Is it raining down or up? So far in this series on pattern types we have been looking at directionality and have covered tossed and one-way. Now on to the two-way designs. These look the same whether they are turned right-side up or upside-down, but not if they are turned sideways. Extra credit if you can tell how that’s utilized in garment production.
The print above is from the collection of cluttershop on Flickr.
Daily Swatch: Pattern Types — One-Way
It’s a little trickier to find geometric one-way designs but I think I’ve done it. Although this print could be turned upside down or sideways and still work, it wouldn’t look exactly the same — the pink/orange/brown rainbows would be frowning and the yellow/black rainbows would be smiling. From Robotic Kid on Flickr.
Daily Swatch: Pattern Types — One-Way
Just because it’s one-way doesn’t mean everything has to sit straight up-and-down. This Americana print feedsack on eBay (ends in five hours! hurry!) has the feel and flow of a tossed print, even though you can only turn it one way. I’m thinking the designer intended this to be transformed into an apron.
Daily Swatch: Pattern Types – One-Way
Green and blue floral (clovers?) from the collection of cluttershop (blog | True Up interview) on Flickr. I was going to say this design could have easily been more versatile, directionality-wise, with a little tweaking. But it would lose a lot of charm without the stems, the drop shadows, the white accents to the top-left of each flower.
Daily Swatch: Pattern Types — One-Way
Here is a one-way novelty print, from the collection of growin’ Up on Flickr.
Daily Swatch: Pattern Types – One-Way
Sometimes prints are layered, and one of the motifs or layers will have one direction and the other(s) will have another. Think of tossed flowers over a plaid background. The final determination, though, is based on the most restrictive directionality. In this print from the collection of mannagryn design on Flickr, the hearts are pointed in two directions but the windows, people, and everything is one-way. So, this would be considered a one-way design.
Daily Swatch: Pattern Types – One-Way
The Daily Swatch features a piece of vintage fabric (almost) every day. Themes change periodically. Please add your own examples of the theme to the True Up and/or Vintage Fabric Flickr pools.
In a continuing series on pattern types, this week the Daily Swatch will feature one-way prints. These are prints in which the motifs are all oriented in one direction. They are common for furnishing fabrics (especially drapery fabrics), but are also found in quilting cotton collections and apparel. When sewing clothing using one-way prints, you must be careful to orient and cut your sewing pattern pieces the same way. In patchwork projects, though, you can cut a portion of the pieces the “wrong” way and sprinkle them in with the right-way pieces so your quilt can lay or hang in more than one direction.
Above: A Waverly floral barkcloth from ingemnuity on Flickr.
The Daily Swatch: Pattern Types – Tossed
Wrapping up this week of tossed prints, here’s a prototypical tossed novelty print — and a super sweet valentine-y one at that, from the collection of kimmymade (blog | shop) on Flickr.
Daily Swatch: Pattern Types – Tossed
I was looking around for a tossed print that has uneven coverage — areas where the motifs are packed together in areas but dispersed in others — this almost fits the bill, but not quite! I still love it though. It’s from the collection of knittingiris on Flickr.
Daily Swatch: Pattern Types – Tossed
1950s stylized floral fabric, from Donna Flower. £12 per half meter, two available. Isn’t it gorgeous?
Daily Swatch: Pattern Types – Tossed
A couple geometric tossed patterns for you today. Up top, a closely packed design of interlocked leaf-like triangles, a feedsack from Antique Fabric, that still shows some background color. Then below, an example of a densely packed design. This mod 60s cotton is from Niesz Vintage Fabric (shop) on Flickr.
Daily Swatch: Pattern Types – Tossed
Little pink flowers and petals on gray, from my own collection. This design still shows a lot of the ground color but is more packed than yesterday’s example. The petals add interest and movement to the design.
Daily Swatch: Pattern Types – Tossed
I’m running low on motif-based theme ideas for the Daily Swatch, so I thought I’d take a breather for a while and turn my attention pattern types. You might remember this post on directionality that I wrote with the help of Michelle of Cicada Studio and now Cloud9 Fabrics. I’ll be devoting a week to each direction type, then I’ll move on to repeat types (square, half-drop, etc.) and other parameters. For each type I’ll do my best to find a variety of motif types and design styles.
We’ll start with tossed patterns. They are what the name implies — the motifs turn and tumble as if they were tossed onto the surface. The repeat itself can be square or dropped, and the motifs can be packed or spaced, spot (surrounded by background) or continuous (connected by other elements, e.g. vines or stems). I’m pretty sure this one should be classified as four-way rather than tossed — according to some of my books, the motifs in tossed prints should never be parallel or perpendicular to the edges of the fabric.
Although tossed patterns look random, the designer must pay careful attention to the placement and direction of the motifs to prevent tracking, or unintentional lines. The eye should flow around aimlessly rather than being forced in any one direction. Tossed patterns are most common in apparel — pieces can be cut out in any direction, translating to less waste — and the most versatile in a quilting collection.
Above, a novelty vintage kitchen fabric from the collection of Chrystelle 2of9 on Flickr. I have it in green!
By the way, I’m all self-taught in this, so if you have professional experience in textile design, please feel free to correct me or add information. There are a couple patterns I’ve come across that I have some questions about.
Daily Swatch: Medallions
Just about every medallion print so far has been very regimented and symmetrical, so I was delighted to come across this beatnik midcentury mod take on the theme. It’s called Moderne from the company Crestloom, and it’s for sale from Urban Burp (who has a new shopping cart feature on their website — fabulous!). Not sure it really qualifies as a medallion, but it’s the last day of this theme so why not play fast and loose, right?
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