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Buying Reproduction Fabrics
for 19th Century Inspired Doll Dresses


Izannah Walker inspired doll 
by Dixie Redmond
www.northdixiedesigns.com

When they saw my latest Izzy's dress, someone asked, "Where do you get your fabrics?"   And I thought I would share the answer here.  I have a great local store that stocks retired cotton quilting fabrics at a discount.  So I buy a lot of my fabrics there.  I search through the bolts looking for words like "Bonnie Blue" or "Judie Rothermal" or "Old Sturbridge Village" printed on the selvedge of the bolts of cotton fabric.   I've found some wonderful ones.  But sometimes, when I am looking for a particular color, or a particular scale of printed reproduction cotton fabrics, I have ordered from these three places: 


You send an email to the owner to order fabrics here, there is not an online cart.   But on the other hand, you get kind personal service.  So it's a trade-off.   Click the fabrics to go to the sites.






I found this shop through one of the students in my Izannah Walker Workshop.  Search for Civil War fabrics and you'll come up with some wonderful choices.   I like how she has a ruler on the fabric for thinking about scale.






This is a great site, too.  But ask about the scale of the fabric before ordering. Sometimes the scale of the image online is smaller than the actual fabric, so ask about scale before ordering.  But you can search their site by color and time period, which is wonderful.
 







 

Some fabrics have a  better drape than others, and I am trying to pay attention to which fabrics have the best drape for small sized dolls.  The Susannah 1848 line of fabrics at Quiltbooks has a beautiful drape for smallish antique inspired dolls.    If you know of a good source, or a good line of fabric that drapes well, please share.






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Posted by Dixie Redmond

2 comments:

  1. The Civil War QuilterJune 21, 2011 at 5:58 AM

    Where can I buy an Izzy doll of my own?!!! I love her.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dixie RedmondJune 21, 2011 at 6:14 AM

    The original antique Izannah Walker dolls usually sell at auction for thousands of dollars. You can check out the other blog I write specifically about Izannah Walker dolls at www.izannahwalkerchronicles.com to learn more about them. They are totally up your alley, time range wise.

    I developed a pattern for an Izannah Walker inspired doll after studying them for 5 years. You can read more about that here: www.izannahwalkerworkshop.blogspot.com

    If you want to buy an Izannah inspired reproduction dolls, a number of people make them wonderfully. I write about my own (which is pictured above) at www.northdixiedesigns.com.

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