Category: Vintage Fabrics

My Nanna Betty taught me to sew when I was a little girl. While we stitched, she told me stories about growing up in Salford: cobbled streets, smoky chimneys, the factory where she worked, and the day she was crowned Rose Queen. I never wanted those stories to be forgotten, so I turned them into fabric.

How the stories became prints

Each print is a little scene from the past. Some come straight from Nanna’s memories. Others come from my own childhood, from old postcards I found in a Salford terraced house, and from research in Manchester’s museums and archives.

When I design, I imagine the people who lived back then: who they were, what they wore and what made them smile. Those little imagined stories, built on real history, are where every print begins.

From Nanna’s stories to Salford Museum

Nanna and I used to visit Lark Hill Place together, the recreated Victorian street inside Salford Museum and Art Gallery. Walking down it brought her stories to life. So it felt very special when, in 2024, my Salford-inspired collection was sold in the museum’s own shop. You can read about it in Salford Now.

The collections

Victorian Britain

Nanna Betty’s Salford: parlour teas, gas-lit streets, ale houses and steam trains.

Edwardian Britain

Inspired by old postcards from the 1910s and 1920s, full of photographs and messages of love.

Home and Kitchen

Cosy days at Nanna and Grandad’s house: jam making, pies and knitting by the fire.

Mid-century

The 1950s, 60s and 70s homes I grew up around, from G-Plan sideboards to bold wallpaper.

Classic Cars and Caravans

Road trips, campfires and my own vintage Eriba Pan caravan.

Traditional English Festivals

Inspired by a photograph of Nanna Betty, crowned Rose Queen in Salford in the 1920s.

Make something from the collection

I’ve used these prints for tote bags, cushions, coasters, skirts and more. You can make the same things yourself with my free sewing cards. One card teaches one skill, and every make takes 2 hours or less.

Would you like to buy the fabrics?

My Storytelling Fabrics aren’t on sale at the moment, but I’d love to bring them back. Subscribe below and you’ll be the first to know.

Read more about my story

When I was a child, our kitchen had the most amazing 1970s patterned wallpaper, and our living room was full of what’s now classic 1960s furniture, including a teak G-Plan sideboard. This collection is inspired by those mid-century homes.

The prints

Each print is a little scene I imagined from the era.

Dinner Party Night

Buddy Holly is on the record player and cocktails are served in curvy glasses. The dancing is in full swing, and everyone is jiving.

Office Business

The office phone is ringing and there are appointments to make. Wood-panelled walls, shag carpet and a classic Eames chair: the clock is ticking, and there are deals to be done.

Mid-century Days

Open-plan living is all the rage, and floor-to-ceiling windows let in the air and light. New gadgets make the jobs quick, leaving the rest of the day for lounging.

Bursting to the Stars

Out with the old and in with the new. Everyone crowds round the television to watch the space race. Could a man really walk on the moon?

Linda’s story: an imagined life, based on real history

To design this collection, I imagined a young woman living in mid-century Manchester. Linda is made up, but her story is based on real history.

Linda has just left school at 16 and is starting her first job as a secretary in an office on King Street in Manchester. She didn’t pass the 11-plus, so grammar school wasn’t an option, but jobs were plentiful. Employers even came to her school to offer the girls office work.

Linda learned to touch-type at school. In those days only men became managers, and women usually gave up work when they married and had children.

But for now, Linda has her own money and her freedom. She rents a room in a boarding house and goes dancing at the Ritz, jiving to Buddy Holly, Elvis and Cliff Richard.

When she marries, she dreams of a modern house with big windows and a garden, perhaps one of the Sunshine Houses at Irlams o’ th’ Height, or a new home in Wythenshawe’s garden city. No heavy, drab Victorian furniture for her: she wants bubble chairs, a starburst clock and her very own telephone. Her future looks bright.

Growing up with 1970s patterns

I was born in the early 1980s, but 1970s patterns were still everywhere: bold yellow and orange curtains and wallpaper, and an avocado bathroom suite. People still wore flares, corduroy skirts and psychedelic floral dresses.

Textile designers like Shirley Craven created bold, abstract prints, and boutiques like Biba sold romantic dresses with billowing sleeves.

I loved 1970s style long before it was cool again. As a teenager I dressed in it, listened to 70s funk, and shopped for vintage in Manchester’s Northern Quarter and Afflecks. Those bold patterns are what made me want to become a textile designer.

Retro prints are popular again today. Orla Kiely brought bold, geometric mid-century prints back into UK homes, and in Manchester, 70s House sells reproduction 1970s fabrics.

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Make it yourself

Bold retro prints are perfect for simple makes. Pick a fabric you love and make your own with my free sewing cards. Every make takes 2 hours or less.

• Cushion cover
• Tote bag
• Elasticated skirt
• Coasters
• Scrunchies

These fabrics aren’t on sale right now, but I hope to bring them back. Subscribe below and I’ll let you know.

See all my Storytelling Fabrics

My first collection, Victorian Britain, captures the stories Nanna Betty told me about growing up in Salford. A world of smoky chimneys, gas lamps and cobbled streets.

Nanna Betty’s Salford

Nanna was born in 1915 in the terraced streets next to Salford Cathedral. The Victorian age had not long ended, and the world she grew up in still felt like something from a Charles Dickens novel: smoggy streets, cotton mills and the workhouse.

She told me about strict teachers at the church school, and the brown pinafore and clogs she wore. Her clogs struck sparks as she ran across the cobbles. Before alarm clocks, the knocker-upper tapped on bedroom windows to wake workers for their shift, for sixpence.

Life was hard. Children left school at 14 and went straight to work. Nanna became a sewing machinist at the Mackintosh raincoat factory in Manchester.

Money was always tight. Families pawned their Sunday best on a Monday and bought it back on a Friday, ready to wear to church. There was no NHS, and Nanna remembered the dentist’s wife sitting on patients to keep them still while a tooth was pulled.

“The people had nothing,” she’d say, “but they had their pride.” Front steps were scrubbed, neighbours helped each other, and everyone shared what little they had.

We often visited Lark Hill Place together, the recreated Victorian street inside Salford Museum and Art Gallery. Walking down it brought her stories to life. Years later, in 2024, my Salford-inspired fabrics were sold in the museum’s own shop.

The prints

Each print is a little scene I imagined from Nanna’s stories.

More Tea Dear?

The parlour is set for tea, with the best cloth and china cups. A fire crackles in the little cast-iron grate, ready for a special guest.

Lark Hill Place

Gas lamps glow warmly along the street. Behind tall iron gates, cats lounge against the net curtains.

Ale House

Shiny tiles and brass fittings line the walls, and the air is full of music and singing. Men huddle in the corner over cards and dominoes, a pint of ale at hand.

Platform 9

Steam billows from the train as battered leather trunks are loaded on. Ladies in fine hats wait at the platform edge, clutching their tickets.

Learning to sew on Nanna’s machine

I learned to sew on Nanna’s heavy 1950s semi-industrial machine. At 9 years old, I had to ask an adult to lift it onto the table for me! Nanna showed me how to guide the fabric like a professional machinist.

She told me that in the factories you weren’t a proper machinist until the needle had gone through your finger. It proved you were fast and not afraid of the machine. Then you had to sit and wait for the engineer to unscrew the needle!

Learning so young led me to study textiles and fashion, and later to teach it.

A short history of Victorian prints

In Victorian times, Manchester was nicknamed Cottonopolis, and the mills around it printed cotton for customers all over the world. At the other end of the scale, designer William Morris brought back slow, traditional hand block printing. His patterns of birds, leaves and twisting vines still define the Victorian look today.

Victorian style is popular again in steampunk fashion. Steampunk fabrics often borrow drawings from old Victorian adverts and medical books, rather than the florals people actually wore.

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Make it yourself

I’ve made all sorts of things from these prints, and you can make them too with my free sewing cards. Every make takes 2 hours or less. Tap a photo’s caption to see how.

These fabrics aren’t on sale right now, but I hope to bring them back. Subscribe below and I’ll let you know.

See all my Storytelling Fabrics

My pride and joy is my original vintage Eriba Pan caravan. Old cars and caravans have so much style, and so much history: the owners they’ve had and the trips they’ve been on. This collection is inspired by classic vehicles and their stories.

The prints

Each print is a little scene I imagined from a vintage road trip.

Dancing Night

All dressed up for a night of dancing with the girls, in a flared skirt, cat-eye glasses and heels. They pile into the Mini with a portable record player to get the party started.

Campfire Evenings

Lazy camping evenings in the Eriba Pan caravan. Toasting marshmallows on the campfire, sipping hot chocolate and gazing at the stars in the clear night sky.

A family day out: an imagined story, based on real history

Time for a Sunday drive. The family piles into the Mini, made by the British Motor Corporation, for lunch in Preston. It’s their very first trip on a motorway: the Preston Bypass, Britain’s first, which opened in 1958. It’s just 8 miles long, and there’s no speed limit yet!

Next summer, the new motorway will make trips to Lytham St Annes quick and easy. They’ll camp in the family VW campervan, play in the sea, fly kites, visit the arcades and eat fish and chips on the way back to the campsite. Happy family memories in the making.

A short history of 1960s prints

Britain in the 1960s exploded into colour. Young people had more money and more jobs than ever before, and British music, art and fashion led the world: the Beatles, David Hockney and Mary Quant, whose Bazaar boutique on the King’s Road was the place to shop. Young women wore short skirts, PVC boots and shift dresses, perfect for dancing after a day at work.

1960s fabrics were bold: flower power, psychedelic swirls and repeating geometric shapes, from designers like Emilio Pucci and Zandra Rhodes. New man-made fabrics like nylon and polyester took bright dyes that didn’t fade in the wash.

Original 1960s fabrics are now collectable. Prints by Barbara Brown for Heal’s can be expensive, so reproduction fabrics are a good option if you’d like to sew your own shift dress.

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Make it yourself

Fun prints make fun makes, perfect for packing for a trip away. Pick a fabric you love and make your own with my free sewing cards. Every make takes 2 hours or less.

• Drawstring bag
• Tote bag
• Eye mask
• Cushion cover
• Scrunchies

These fabrics aren’t on sale right now, but I hope to bring them back. Subscribe below and I’ll let you know.

See all my Storytelling Fabrics

Going to Nanna and Grandad’s house was like stepping back into the 1930s and 40s. It was so cosy. Nanna taught me to make jam, bake pies and knit, and this collection is inspired by those visits.

The prints

Each print is a little scene I imagined from those days.

Jam Making

A morning spent picking blackberries along the country lanes. The sugar is weighed, the jars are ready and the water is boiling for an afternoon of jam making.

Pie Making

The Aga warms the tiled kitchen floor. Flour, butter and a dash of milk make a lovely crust for tonight’s chicken pie and gravy.

Home Sweet Home

A cold winter’s Sunday afternoon. The cat is curled up on the rug by the coal fire, and it’s time to settle down with a pot of tea and a good book.

Knitting Break

The front step is scrubbed and the windows cleaned with vinegar and newspaper. Time for some knitting from Woman’s Weekly in front of the television.

Lilly’s story: an imagined life, based on real history

To design this collection, I imagined a woman from the make do and mend generation. Lilly is made up, but her story is based on real history.

During the Second World War, Lilly managed a munitions factory in Manchester. The bombing was fierce during the Manchester Blitz, with Salford Docks and the city’s warehouses among the targets. Lilly helped with the injured when Salford Royal Hospital was hit. After a night in the air-raid shelter, she still went to work the next day.

When the war ended, so did her job. Men needed work, and women were expected back in the home.

Rationing carried on for years, so Lilly never threw anything away. Every scrap of food and fabric was used. She turned her husband’s old suit into a skirt, and knitted scarves, hats and jumpers while listening to the wireless.

A white wedding was a luxury, so Lilly married in a homemade dress of green crepe, embroidered with green beads. She married the same year as Princess Elizabeth, and it felt wonderful to have something to celebrate again.

A short history of 1930s and 1940s prints

1930s fabrics had a cosy, homely feel: florals, polka dots, tartans and little animals, in soft peaches, pinks, lilacs and blues. It was the era of the tea dress, with puffed sleeves, ruffles and belted waists. Times were hard during the Great Depression, and many women made their own clothes because it was cheaper than buying them.

My favourite 1930s story comes from the USA. Families made dresses from the cotton sacks that flour and animal feed came in. When the mills noticed, they began printing the sacks with pretty patterns so they could be used for dressmaking.

In the 1940s, clothing and fabric were rationed, and women were encouraged to make do and mend. Men’s suits became women’s skirts and jackets, scraps became patchwork quilts and rag rugs, and after the war old blackout curtains became dresses and pyjamas. Some lucky brides even wore parachute silk.

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Make it yourself

Just like Nanna, you can make useful, cosy things for your home. Pick a fabric you love and make your own with my free sewing cards. Every make takes 2 hours or less.

• Coasters
• Cushion cover
• Tote bag
• Drawstring bag
• Pyjama trousers

These fabrics aren’t on sale right now, but I hope to bring them back. Subscribe below and I’ll let you know.

See all my Storytelling Fabrics

My second collection was inspired by old postcards I found in a stone terraced house. They date from the 1910s and 1920s, full of old photographs and messages of love.

The prints

Each print is a little scene I imagined from the postcards.

Invitation for the Lady

An invitation to afternoon tea, such an honour! A fine spread of Victoria sponge, jellies from moulds and lace doilies, with a blouse to match.

Remember Me

Take this token of love to remind you of me. Since seas divide us, keep a piece of me, so you will never forget me.

Dear Alice

“Dear Alice, I do wish I could take you by the hand in the good old-fashioned way and walk along the lanes of our childhood, where the hedges were fragrant with wild roses and honeysuckle.”

A Day to Remember

A day we thought would never come. Dancing in the street, bunting up high, we laughed, cheered and partied long into the night.

Penelope’s story: an imagined life, based on real history

To design this collection, I imagined a young woman living in Edwardian Manchester. Penelope is made up, but her world is real.

Penelope’s family once made its fortune in the cotton mills. Now they are comfortably middle class, and a great aunt has paid for Penelope to attend finishing school, where she learned the strict rules of etiquette.

Today she wears a lilac satin skirt, free from the corset in the new style of French designer Paul Poiret. She adds long gloves and a wide-brimmed picture hat, decorated with silk bows, lace and feathers, and made in Stockport, Manchester’s famous hat-making town.

A letter has arrived, addressed “An invitation for the lady”: afternoon tea with Manchester’s women of influence, at a fundraiser for the suffragettes. Over Victoria sponge, the ladies talk politics. War is looming. Penelope holds tight to a love token from her fiancé, far away across the sea. Will she ever see him again?

Researching the collection

I designed this collection while studying for a Textiles MA at Manchester School of Art. I researched Manchester’s Edwardian history at:

• Special Collections, Manchester Metropolitan University
• Hat Works Museum, Stockport
• The Pankhurst Centre
• Platt Hall

A short history of Edwardian and 1920s prints

The Edwardian era, from 1901 to 1910, was an optimistic time after the Victorian age. Art nouveau was in fashion, with flowing patterns inspired by flowers and nature, and Liberty of London became famous for its art nouveau fabrics. Grand department stores like Selfridges became symbols of glamour.

After the First World War came the roaring twenties and art deco, with bold geometric shapes and plenty of gold on dark backgrounds. Sonia Delaunay designed brightly coloured geometric fabrics based on her abstract paintings, and her ideas went on to influence the bold prints of the 1960s and 70s.

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Make it yourself

These prints were made for simple, pretty makes. Pick a fabric you love and make your own with my free sewing cards. Every make takes 2 hours or less.

• Tote bag
• Cushion cover
• Coasters
• Drawstring bag
• Eye mask

These fabrics aren’t on sale right now, but I hope to bring them back. Subscribe below and I’ll let you know.

See all my Storytelling Fabrics

This collection began with a photograph of my Nanna Betty, taken when she was crowned Rose Queen in Salford in the 1920s.

Nanna’s Rose Queen story

Rose Queen festivals were a much-loved summer tradition across Salford and Manchester. Girls walked through the streets in their best dresses, and one of them was crowned Rose Queen.

For Nanna, being chosen was a treasured memory she held close all her life. I love to imagine the streets decorated with flags, ribbons and roses, with friends, family and neighbours lining the route to cheer her on.

Festivals like this brought the whole community together. Everyone dressed in their best clothes and joined in, and the memories were passed down through the generations, just as Nanna passed hers down to me.

The prints

Rose Queen

Crowns, roses and dancing shoes, for one very special day in a young girl’s life.

More festival prints

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Make it yourself

Make something special for your own celebrations. Pick a fabric you love and make your own with my free sewing cards. Every make takes 2 hours or less.

• Elasticated skirt
• Scrunchies
• Drawstring bag
• Tote bag

These fabrics aren’t on sale right now, but I hope to bring them back. Subscribe below and I’ll let you know.

See all my Storytelling Fabrics