wanted: original print upholstery fabrics in any condition

[justanotheramy]

I'm keen to make some reproduction fabrics inspired by vintage caravan upholstery.
I've bought other people's designs from Spoonflower.com and been pretty happy with the quality, and they do everything from silk to nylon canvas.

What I need is fabric samples to start from!
If anyone has or is planning to reupholster due to wear, fading, or damage I'd love to get my hands on decent size samples of print fabrics.
Will pay postage costs, and am willing to return any samples after a few weeks loan if you want to keep them.

[vintage69]

Hi,
I have a full set of our 1968 Olympic Riviera dinette and bed covers which we carefully unpicked on 1 seam when we reupholstered our Caravan. They are in excellent condition and maybe just what you are looking for. Let me know if you are interested?

[justanotheramy]

If I could borrow one for a few weeks, that would be great!
I can pay postage both ways

[justanotheramy]

Oh dear.
I don't think I've made the reason for my interest in the fabrics entirely clear?

Spoonflower.com is an on-demand fabric printing service. Users upload digital files of a pattern with a repeat, and customers can order fabrics from those that users make available publicly (you can also just use the service to make single-run fabrics that aren't for public sale).

So I'm not wanting to use the actual fabric, I'm looking for original prints to copy, making new fabric.
Well, not exactly copy, as that would be a breach of copyright — but prints closely inspired by old textiles.

I'm going to start with the upholstery print in my own van, but the more the merrier!
The plan is to upload them as available to purchase, so they'll be accessible to anyone looking for vintage van fabrics

So… if you have any original print fabrics — upholstery, curtains — anything vintage, but the earlier the better really, that you'd be willing to part with even as a short-term loan, that would be amazing.
Because I'm wanting to copy the design, not use the fabric itself, rips and fading and almost any other damage is not an issue.

[cobber]

G'day justanotheramy,

I have to admit this mere male doesn't understand what is actually needed for this project
 Must you have real live pieces of material in your hot little hands or.... would photos of the original material in our vintage caravans be sufficient to do the job ?
If you need samples of the material what do you do with them ?

From my limited understanding of Spoonflower and the fabric I bought from them I thought they just printed the photo you sent them onto the fabric of you choice.

Cobber.

[justanotheramy]

Photo… Not exactly. But an image file, yes.

I will start with the original fabric, and then depending on the scale of the repeat (the 'tile' of pattern that's gridded over the whole of the fabric to make the print) and the condition of the sample, I'll either scan it or set up my DSLR on a copy stand to get as clean a reference image as I can. Ideally I'd document the same repeat from different areas of the sample piece, as different areas will have aged and stretched differently.
Then I'll use that as a starting point for creating the shapes for each colour in separate layers, pick as good a colour match as I can for each from Spoonflower's palette, tidy it up, and then check that the matching edges of the repeat… match.
Check file size and format, and… Bob's yer uncle

I'll be photographing my own upholstery with the DSLR because a mattress won't fit in my scanner

If anyone is in Adelaide (or passing through) I could theoretically do something similar, if they didn't mind me poking around the van a bit and maybe taking a mattress outside in search of better light.

Really, though, any piece of vintage-van-original print fabric that shows at least one whole repeat (or enough to reconstruct missing bits) would be awesome.

[cobber]

OK Jaa 

Got it   sounds like a piece of cake  ..... except for that bit about getting the repeat edges matching 

I went to their 'get started' page and inserted a photo off my ipad and thought I was home and hosed  ....  but the repeats didn't line up  so, I hope you get a few samples of fabric and look forward to seeing what you come up with 

Cobber.

[justanotheramy]

I have a visual arts (photography) background, and a reasonable amount of experience with Photoshop, so I've got a bit of a head start
Design for printing is a little bit different, so there's some stuff to figure out, but nothing a bit of squinting and swearing can't conquer.