The cotton fabrics of the nineteen-sixties (and before) appeal to me in ways the prints of subsequent decades don't quite match. I wrote last week of the blouse with the little pears. A couple of summers later, my mother came home with shifts (a waistless dress) made of cotton fabric with rows of little terriers carrying black and white little newspapers. That fabric has come to mind at least four times in the last week. My sewing skills are limited, and I don't work much with cloth, but there's this wistfulness about the cotton prints with the homey details.

Tonight, I've been thinking of the Beatles song, 'Blackbird', and its gentle sound. I can imagine a fabric with rows of little blackbirds, black on red. (Or a fabric of red birds, red on black.) I knew a little girl who wore a cotton shirt with a pattern like you might see on men's shirts or dress socks, vertical rectangular shapes that might remind one of the little crystals that once hung off of crystal lamps. These were a red and green and black on white background. The shirt was worn every day, not out of necessity, but out of love, familiarity, comfort, and stubbornness.

I've spent half an hour trying to find the names of the old prints. Paisley and plaid come up, but nothing about the one I inadequately described above. However, I did find a very cool list of 269 types of fabric. You've likely heard of burlap and cambric, but did you know about harn and gulix? I'm typing in the link. Or you can copy and paste: http://phrontistery.info/fabric.html