Colonial Prints

We have had such a lovely range of reproduction fabrics come in last week - Colonial Print from Blue Hill Fabrics. The beautiful and rare poison greens, purples and cheddars are here in one spectacular collection from Sara Morgan!


These hard-to-find reproductions are authentic to the labour-intensive original dyed fabrics. The greens, for example, were a “double process” colour. First, the fabric had to be dyed yellow,... then dyed again with Indigo or Prussian Blue to produce the vivid colour named for its resemblance to the arsenic-based and toxic “Scheele’s Green” used in wallpaper throughout the 19th Century.


Samuel Widmer developed an easier process of printing the fabric with mix of china blue and tin oxide (a mordant), and then dyeing the fabric yellow. The yellow would only adhere to areas with the tin oxide and produce a green image.


The bright cheddars and vivid purples were achieved with natural dyeing elements and were overdyed to produce their intense hues.


Not until 1875, when synthetic dyes were developed, did these colours become more prevalent in fabrics. Sara’s collection features the authentic vintage prints of the mid-19th century.