Yesterday I made a substantial investment. I purchased two yards of Liberty of London cotton lawn from my favorite local shop; Fancy Tiger but YIKERS, it's pricey! Worth a trip across the pond just to get a reasonable price.
The design I picked is called Yoshie, in charcoal. It also is sold in a cherry red color. It was designed by graphic designer Yoshie Watanabe.
Anyway, brought it home and pre-washed it, along with my Anna Maria Horner Little Folks voile yardage, which has such a similar hand. The Liberty is more densely woven and of course, the designs are iconic, though the one I bought yesterday is modern. But the weight of the fabric is so similar. I really LOVE the AMH voile and hope she and other designers continue to use it.
It washes so well, makes me want to only use these high thread count fabrics in the future. Normally when I wash quilting cotton, I have to remove it from the dryer and spend a substantial amount of time pulling the fabric apart that have become intwined in one another due to the frayed edges. Yes, I know you can pink the raw edges to avoid this but I'm too lazy. Anyway, I spend a long time cutting off the frays before drying it so they don't get tangled up again in the dryer. The Liberty and voile fabrics hardly fray at all, they are a dream to wash.
And on the topic of Liberty fabrics.... I made my first Liberty blouse back in the 80s when I lived in St. Louis. I still remember picking out the expensive fabric off a roll at a fabric shop that sold high end fabrics. I have no idea where the shirt is now but I used the scraps in a quilt and took a photo. It wasn't as tightly woven as the Tana lawn, you can kind of see that from the photo:
And lastly, I actually found a scrap of Liberty of London fabric at at thrift shop once! I used it to decorate a linen pillow cover. Now if I could only find an entire roll at the thrift shop, that would be nice. Stranger things have happened, but usually when you're not expecting them.
I recently bought some AMH voile and made a tunic top with it and I LOVE it! Mine unfortunately did fray kinda badly (I pre-washed it with little girls tights not smart I know). =) Now I know never to do that again.
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